A Preemptive Move
Hyundai Motor announced on Oct. 11 that it has decided to recall 51,000 units of the Kona Electric in overseas markets in addition to the 25,546 units to be recalled in Korea.
This means that the Korean carmaker will take voluntary and preemptive measures even without foreign governments’ administrative orders. Vehicles manufactured between September 2017 and March 2020 will be subject to the recall. March 2020 is when Hyundai Motor implemented the first update of the Kona Electric’s battery management system (BMS) software. By region, 11,137 units will be recalled in North America, 37,366 in Europe and 3,000 in other regions such as China and India.
The Kona Electric is the third best-selling EV model in the world after the Tesla Model 3 (196,106 units) and the Renault ZOE (52,835 units) in the first eight months of 2020. Since its launch in 2017, 77,748 units had sold abroad until the first half of 2020. Under Hyundai Motor’s plan, 70 percent of them will be recalled. Including those in Korea, Hyundai Motor will recall a total of 77,000 units.
The Kona Electric was involved in four fire cases overseas including one in Canada in July 2019 and another in Austria in September 2019. In Korea, nine fires occurred, including one that took place in an underground parking lot of an apartment building in Daegu on Oct. 4.
Car fires are nothing new. The Tesla Model S and Model X are under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the United States due to dozens of fires. But no recall has been prompted by such fires. Nearly all electric vehicle models, including the Volkswagen e-Golf and Chevrolet Volt, have caught fire, and even vehicles displayed in showrooms caught fire. However, none of the manufacturers have made a voluntary recall.
In particular, Hyundai Motor voluntarily requested the NHTSA to recall the Kona Electric, even though it never caught fire in the United States. "The measure was taken preemptively against the possibility of the defective high-voltage batteries catching fire," a Hyundai official said.
Kona Electric's battery cells were produced by LG Chem. However, the battery producer said its batteries should not be blamed for the fires because the exact cause has not been determined yet.