by The number of electric Hyundai Kona in Ukraine is growing month by month. But their owners have reason to worry – these electric cars are prone to spontaneous combustion, and the South Korean company has acknowledged this.
As Insideevs.com writes, Hyundai published the findings of the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) commission, which determined that the cause of the fires are issues with LG Chem batteries. Specifically, “a folded anode tab on the traction battery,” the company says.
The commission emphasized: all defective batteries were produced at LG Chem’s factory in Nanjing, China. Representatives of the battery supplier LG Chem do not admit their guilt and state that they are not yet familiar with the official results of the MOLIT commission. The battery manufacturer insists that during numerous cell tests the problem could not be reproduced, and the spontaneous combustion of the crossovers is a consequence of incorrect operation of the control software developed by Hyundai for fast charging.
Since Hyundai decided to replace the traction batteries on all electric cars that fall into the risk group, the parties will have to invest about 1 billion (!) dollars in a large-scale recall campaign.
