77,000 Konas to be recalled due to fire risk!

[Jason71]

This was particularly worrying
"Motor President Seo Bo-shin, who is in charge of quality control, said the company “admits the defects in vehicles” and “has found a solution” to fix the defects, “though it is not perfect.””

I know this is a Tesla forum but Tesla does not exist in a bubble
This is definitely bad for anyone with a Kona and the reputation of EV's as a whole
But could it actually be GOOD for Tesla since it plays in to them being the "Established Experts" narrative?
or will it just put new focus on ALL EV fires including Tesla ones?
discuss

(yes I know Konas should not have an apostrophe but I can't edit the title)

 

[Neilio]

The latter a feel. As advanced as Teslas technology is electric vehicles are very much in their infancy and things like this might happen. I am not surprised by the recall and commend Hyundai on quick actions. The worrying thing is that the solution is "not perfect" however. It shows we have a long way to go. We are early adopters though and have to accept there will be testing problems

 

[Jason71]

what about the N-Niro? Doesn't that share a common battery design with the Kona?

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Tesla knobbled loads of 85 batteries because of a fire risk rather than recall them and fix the problem. They also changed their warranty wording going forward that excluded any such software change to available capacity from the battery degradation figures that are now warrantied (ie they can take away a slice of your battery through an OTA update and there is nothing you can do about it).

So sadly I'd suggest the Kona is being dealt with properly whereas Tesla push out a software update to reduce the likelihood of the fire but in doing so hurt many owners.

 

[Adopado]

So sadly I'd suggest the Kona is being dealt with properly whereas Tesla push out a software update to reduce the likelihood of the fire but in doing so hurt many owners.

Isn't it just that the Kona needs workshop intervention to achieve exactly the same as what Tesla did with an over the air software update?

 

[Jason71]

Isn't it just that the Kona needs workshop intervention to achieve exactly the same as what Tesla did with an over the air software update?

I doubt the issues are comparable. if there is a risk of something physically rupturing a pouch you can't do anything about that with software.
Not sure what the tesla issue was but it was not that.
I should have included the link in the original post:

Hyundai to recall 77,000 Kona electric cars over risk of battery fire, fights LG Chem over cause - Electrek

 

[Exy1]

I would say EVERY vehicle has the potential to be a fire risk.

Carrying around a big parcel of energy is never going to be risk free whether that's petrol, diesel or electrickery.

Need a LOT more information to be able to accurately perform a meaningful risk assessment.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Isn't it just that the Kona needs workshop intervention to achieve exactly the same as what Tesla did with an over the air software update?

In fairness I don't know what the Kona solution is, if the fix is apply firmware that reduces the battery capacity then it would be the same.

As far as I can tell Tesla are fairly unusual in that they do not reserve a top buffer of battery capacity which is why we have all the "charge to 90%" conversations, so I doubt the Kona has exactly the same fix unless the size of their problem is the top buffer and then some.

 

[Jason71]

In fairness I don't know what the Kona solution is, if the fix is apply firmware that reduces the battery capacity then it would be the same.

As far as I can tell Tesla are fairly unusual in that they do not reserve a top buffer of battery capacity which is why we have all the "charge to 90%" conversations, so I doubt the Kona has exactly the same fix unless the size of their problem is the top buffer and then some.

I think if I owned one I would be very keen to find out exactly what the fix was.
Software fixes such as Tesla's P85 fix and VW's dieselgate are never an improvement for the owner. If they were they would have done them to begin with.

 

[Fred2]

FYI, as of July total Kona sales were 100k (Hyundai KONA Electric Hits 100,000 Global Sales Milestone), so this isn’t just a few affected vehicles.

Definitely not just an ev thing - Opel recalled several hundred thousand zafiras last year after 300+ actual fires, not just potential risk of fire ( Vauxhall recalls Zafira models for third time over new fire risk)

 

[Jason71]

FYI, as of July total Kona sales were 100k (Hyundai KONA Electric Hits 100,000 Global Sales Milestone), so this isn’t just a few affected vehicles.

Definitely not just an ev thing - Opel recalled several hundred thousand zafiras last year after 300+ actual fires, not just potential risk of fire ( Vauxhall recalls Zafira models for third time over new fire risk)

so either 23K not affected or in countries with really weak consumer protection laws

 

[Glan gluaisne]

One advantage of the Tesla battery pack is definitely the use of cylindrical cells, with individual cell fuses as interconnects. Although both cylindrical and pouch cells use a very similar electrode and separator arrangement, mechanically cylindrical cells are significantly more robust. There's also an inherent current limiting property for cylindrical cells, as they have a higher internal resistance for a given capacity (at least until the switch to tabless construction) than pouch cells.

I've built battery packs for electric bikes, a motorcycle and a boat, and the most robust have always been those made using cylindrical cells, I've never once had any issue with using them, unless they've been badly abused. I have had problems using pouch cells, though, almost all relating to ensuring the cells were adequately mechanically compressed in the pack, or ensuring there is no vibration-related damage from chafing between cells. Like all lithium ion cells, pouch cells change dimensionally with the state of charge. This change is very small, but it can affect the spacing between the electrodes. The work around for all pouch cell packs is to try and compress the cells so that each pouch is preloaded across its face area. With cylindrical cells, this preloading is via the rigidity of the outer cylindrical case.

It may be that the issue that Hyundai have seen is related to this need to keep the cells compressed slightly, or, perhaps, an issue with the cell expansion and contraction being greater than that assumed during the pack design. If the preload on the cells isn't sufficient, then what can happen is that the separator between the electrodes fails, and when that happens it is possible to get thermal runaway, from internal cell shorts. Anyone who's used pouch cells (without compression) for powering things like model aircraft may have experienced, or heard of, "puffed" cells and perhaps fires. It's something that used to be pretty commonplace in the early days of LiPo cell use in this application, and was often caused by the combination of having no cell preload force, no effective battery management system and operating the battery packs in a high vibration environment.

 

[Roy W.]

It makes me glad I got rid of my Kona electric!

 

[Plagued]

It's hard to guess at the issue, as there's little info. Are we talking fire following an accident or random fire/fire when charging.
Some fire prevention can be coded into software (like tesla did) to avoid over charging faulty/poor performing cells. If it's that you may see a detrimental impact of such a change like slower charging, lower power output, shorter range.
If it's a fire in the event of an impact tesla's design has a huge advantage over pouch cells in terms of rigidity, but tesla cells are probably closer to the edge of the car for side impact. If it was a structural issue it could be very costly to implement, if it's a software one that has a detrimental impact on performance it could be costly with compensation cases.

 

[GRiLLA]

Polestar recalling the 2200 cars they sold last week, needs a software update to stop it turning off while driving ..

All Polestar 2s Recalled for Problem That Can Shut Down the EV.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

It's hard to guess at the issue, as there's little info. Are we talking fire following an accident or random fire/fire when charging.
Some fire prevention can be coded into software (like tesla did) to avoid over charging faulty/poor performing cells. If it's that you may see a detrimental impact of such a change like slower charging, lower power output, shorter range.
If it's a fire in the event of an impact tesla's design has a huge advantage over pouch cells in terms of rigidity, but tesla cells are probably closer to the edge of the car for side impact. If it was a structural issue it could be very costly to implement, if it's a software one that has a detrimental impact on performance it could be costly with compensation cases.

The Canadian fire seems to have been whilst the car was parked in a garage, and not being charged, so presumably not impact or charging related. Made me suspect that it might be a temperature related problem, perhaps related to an electrode separator issue. Separator failure due to electrode movement is a known failure mode, particularly for pouch cells that aren't tightly preloaded.

 

[Jason71]

The Canadian fire seems to have been whilst the car was parked in a garage, and not being charged, so presumably not impact or charging related. Made me suspect that it might be a temperature related problem, perhaps related to an electrode separator issue. Separator failure due to electrode movement is a known failure mode, particularly for pouch cells that aren't tightly preloaded.

Sounds as if any fix would have to be either
a) a software fix which will undoubtedly limit some aspect of the car like range or charge rate
b) replacement of the pack which would be insanely expensive
are there many other options unless they are going to take the packs out and test/replace some cells which would also be a pretty big job. What else can you do if it really is "the separator in the battery cell was damaged due to errors in the manufacturing process" and if you tried to do a) to fix that I think you would get sued

 

[Roy W.]

The more surprising thing for me is that they’ve only sold 100,000 and the car has been on sale over two years!

I’d put my money on a software fix.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Well crap. We've been testing BEVs*. Bolt, Kona and Niro. Kona was the leader, having the best combination of seat comfort** and driving. Bolt lost on seat comfort, Niro behind on driving.

* Not Tesla. They don't make a compact hatchback. Yet.
** For wife. I'm fine with any of them.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

The more surprising thing for me is that they’ve only sold 100,000 and the car has been on sale over two years!

I’d put my money on a software fix.

Not surprising. Two major constraints: not really wanting to sell it until 2020, and battery supply.