New York (CNN Business)Hyundai will recall 82,000electric cars globally to replace their batteries after 15 reports of fires involving the vehicles. Despite therelatively small number of cars involved, Hyundai's recall is one of the mostexpensive in history, signaling how electric car defects could create heftycosts for automakers — at least in the near future.
The recall will cost Hyundai 1 trillion Korean won, or $900million. On a per-vehicle basis, the average cost is $11,000 — anastronomically high number for a recall. Replacing an entire battery is an extreme measure, requiringa similar amount of work and expense as replacing an entire engine of atraditional internal combustion-powered car. Very few recalls of gasolinepowered cars require an entire engine to be replaced. One of the few exceptionswas a 2014 recall of 785 of the Porsche 911 GT3 sports cars. Porsche did notrelease the cost of that recall, but it was certainly more expensive on aper-vehicle basis than this Hyundai recall. Still, a recall costing more than $11,000 per vehicle isextremely rare. Precise figures are not available because most automakers donot disclose the cost of their recalls. Because there are so many more gasoline-powered cars on theroad than EVs, the total cost of those recalls can easily exceed the $900million this recall is costing Hyundai. For example General Motors recentlytook a $1.2 billion charge for the cost of replacing Takata airbags, but that covered 7million vehicles, meaning the recall cost less than $200 per vehicle. Theaverage cost of an auto recall over the last 10 years was about $500 pervehicle, according to Mike Held, a director in the automotive and industrialpractice at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm. "Overall, battery safety and durability will beincreasingly important if auto companies want to avoid some of the largebattery-recall costs that have befallen the consumer-electronicsindustry," he said. The cost of Hyundai's recall is another indication of justhow expensive EV batteries are relative to the cost of the entire car. Untilthe cost of batteries comes down, through greater production worldwide andeconomies of scale, the cost of making electric vehicles will remain higherthan comparable gasoline cars. Once batteries do become less expensive, as is expected inthe coming years, EVs could become much cheaper to build because they have fewermoving parts and require as much as 30% fewer hours of labor for assemblycompared to traditional vehicles. Automakersare going green to save money, not just the planet The fewer parts on the EVs could also mean that recallsshould be less common than for internal combustion-powered cars. But in thenear term, there could be significant costs if battery fire problems requirebattery replacements. Battery fires No one was injured in any of the Hyundai fires, many ofwhich took place after the cars were shut off and sitting empty. None of thefires took place in the United States. The US National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration estimated last October that there are 6,700 electric Hyundai Konas, the US version of the affected vehicles, onAmerican roads. Hyundai said an investigation into the fires showed the cars'defective LG-made battery cells could short circuit. The recall also covers the Ioniq EV, and Elec City vehiclesin South Korea. The recall includes 27,000 Korean vehicles and 55,000 elsewherein the world. Fires involving EV batteries are not unique to thesevehicles. GM (GM) isalso recalling an earlier version its electric Chevrolet Bolt because of fire problems caused by itsown LG battery, although a different model than the one triggering the Hyundairecall. GM is not replacing the batteries in the 68,000 Bolts beingrecalled globally. Of that total, nearly 51,000 are in the United States. Whilethe automaker isn't saying how its problem will be addressed, it is likely tobe handled with a software update. Tesla (TSLA) alsohad a problem with battery fires early in its history, but that was tiedto road debris kicking up and damaging the batteries.Most EV batteries are installed across the bottom of the car. Tesla dealt withthe problem by adding more undercarriage shielding to protect thebatteries. Gasoline or diesel cars also present fire risks, typicallyafter accidents when drivers and passengers are still in the vehicle, posinga greater safety threat. | | | | | | | | | | | Are electric cars more likely to catch fire? Chris Isidore Recent fiery crashes involving Tesla are raising concerns about the safety of electric cars. But carrying a tank... | | | Hyundai said it is still in talks with battery supplier LGEnergy Solutions to determine which company will be responsible for the cost.The Korean Transport ministry seemed to blame LG for the fire problems in itsstatement on the recall, attributing them to a misaligned battery cell. But LG's statement, which said it will cooperate with theKorean Transport Ministry's ongoing investigation, denied that was the reasonfor the fires. "The fire was not recreated in the lab test, and theissue was an early mass production problem in Hyundai Motors dedicatedline," said LG's statement. The company said it "will furtherstrengthen safety in all processes from product plan to manufacture andinspection." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20210301/6cd91562/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
