https://www.world-today-news.com/%EB%8B%A8%EB%8F%85-finding-the-cause-of-thekona-fire-lg-battery-serious-defect/?fbclid=IwAR3RQPPcIReY-ypqPnmuPyoCBNxEPTpC5L4MSmnXOKH21phQRLCFa2uGvp0
Good find, comes as no surprise to me. Now that LG Energy Solutions have admitted the defect in the production packs, the real question is how long will it take to replace ~ 77,000 units?
Another report, this time a rebuttal from LG "it's far from the truth" "It is true that company officials visited the Namyang Research Institute and discussed the matter, but we can not confirm the institutes reported discovery of battery defects" "If the cause of the fires is battery separators as rumored, we will claim compensation from the separator manufacturer" http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=60332
And the separator manufacturer will sue their materials provider.... Meanwhile SKI banned for 10 years in the US. LG can blame them too for contributing to this problem
The other question is when was the defect corrected? And is it only batteries from this one plant that are have this defect? Too many unknowns remain.
Certainly the 196 BMS update allowed the possibility of recovering and inspecting cells that had not self-combusted, so it's not surprising we're seeing some signs of progress.
Hyundai in Korea have all but announced they will replace ALL battery packs in the Konas but the announcement is being held due to LG not wanting to pay for it globally. Even if LG refuse to cover the cost of overseas replacements, surely it would not be hard to make the case against Hyundai if they didn't replace our batteries themselves. Its been deemed dangerous, precedent will be set in Korea, it needs replacing, do you think we can expect Hyundai will replace batteries for all affected cars in all countries?
These guys say confirmed https://electrek.co/2021/02/17/hyundai-reportedly-set-to-replace-kona-lg-batteries-in-korea/
Don't park them that close!!! Imagine one battery is charged with regular electrons but its twin with positrons: They might autodestroy !!!! ;-)
Should we it as a good point? If they replace the battery we'll all have brand new batteries and I suppose it's the part that degrades the most in this car.
The question is if they will give you NEW batteries or refurbished ones?? What if they just refurbish batteries with new connectors and you may get a battery with more degradation than the one that was removed from your car... If it's all "NEW" batteries, that would be great but if it's refurbished ones, you don't know whose battery with how much degradation you will get..
I suppose there is no way to regenerate a faulty separator - such a link is beyond repair. Battery regeneration consists rather in examining and replacing worn or damaged individual cells. But this time we have the case to replace the entire battery with all the cells - because each one has a defective separator.
This will be a gift to any high mileage Kona's. Essentially, you will be back to a full range (no degradation) new battery.
I have about 46k miles/74k km now.... no degradation that I can see so far... Still getting the same GoM range that I got when new..
I would be happy if they extended my battery warranty to be lifetime, incl all future owners. That would be assuming the software fix would catch all battery defects before they caught fire.