Hyundai is gearing up to address customer needs and ensure vehicle safety priorities. Safety recall is a response to the suspicion of malfunction of high voltage batteries used in vehicles. As part of this, the company has recalled more than 25,000 cars.
According to a statement from the South Korean transport ministry, Hyundai has recalled 25,564 Kona electric vehicles (EVs) manufactured between September 2017 and March 2020.
News of the fire involving the Kona EV forced Hyundai and its main battery supplier, LG Chem Ltd., to launch an investigation and take action to rectify it. Some 13 incidents of fire involving the Kona EV have been reported recently, including one each in Canada and Austria, according to a Reuters report.
Hyundai says it can cause fires when high voltage batteries fail. The company will be replacing the battery after software updates and tests. They added that it would deploy all necessary measures to identify the cause of the fire and address the needs of the customers.
Meanwhile, battery supplier LG Chem Ltd. said the exact cause of the fire has not been determined and that the cause were not battery cells. They say a reenactment experiment conducted jointly with Hyundai did not cause the fire.
However, LG Chem said in a statement that it will actively participate in future investigations with Hyundai to find the exact cause of the fire.
The battery accounts for about 30% of an EV’s price, analysts say. Investors were therefore concerned that recall and battery replacement would be costly.
Shares of Hyundai fell 1.4%, while LG Chem shares rose 1.8%.
The Kona Electric is the South Korean automaker’s first long-range subcompact SUV EV. Hyundai now also makes the car at its European plant in the Czech Republic.
Euisun Chung, Group leader of the Hyundai Motor Group, said Hyundai Motor and its sister company Kia Motors plan to sell 1 million battery-driven electric vehicles in 2025. He added that the project would target more than 10% of the global market share for such vehicles.