Tag: electric cars

This should suprise no one that a cheaply produced Chinese made battery likely caused the recent massive EV fire in South Korea:

The burnt  Mercedes EQE sedan is transferred for a thorough investigation in Incheon. [NEWS1]

Mercedes-Benz‘s ties with an obscure Chinese battery maker came under heavy scrutiny in Korea over the revelation that its EV at the center of a massive explosion in an underground parking garage used the supplier’s battery. 
  
The supplier is Ganzhou-based Farasis Energy, which was founded in 2009 and has a history of issuing recalls due to fire risks.

Mercedes EV owners claim that the German luxury carmaker deceived consumers by marketing some particular EVs as powered by batteries from Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world’s largest battery maker in terms of shipments. 
  
“It’s definitely an intention to deceive customers. How could a luxury brand like Mercedes use batteries from a brand that no one has heard of and never notify us?” said Jeon Kang-hwan, an owner of a Mercedes EQE 350+ who also heads an emergency committee of around 300 Mercedes owners who are preparing for a class-action lawsuit against the German luxury marque for consumer fraud.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

It has been a rough month for EV’s in South Korea with yet another car catching fire:

Customer concerns about electric vehicles (EVs) have intensified following a recent fire report involving an all-electric Model X luxury SUV from Tesla, the most beloved EV maker in Korea.

The incident further fueled the widespread fear of EVs here, after Mercedes-Benz’s EQE EV burst into flames earlier this month. Drivers have since rapidly lost trust in the once-reliable German carmaker after it became known that the vehicle was equipped with a less-reliable Chinese battery.

The recent fire involving a Model X resulted in the vehicle being completely destroyed after approximately four hours of firefighting efforts. The vehicle was parked on a road in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, on Friday afternoon.

Tesla used a battery from Japan’s Panasonic for its EV. This heightened fears that batteries from famous non-Chinese firms are also not safe either.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

With another fire, this is making me wonder if Korean building owners will start banning EVs from being parked in parking garages?:

Firefighters work to extinguish a blaze that broke out from an EV car in a parking lot in South Chungcheong. [NEWS1]

Yet another EV-related blaze broke out in Geumsan County, South Chungcheong, following a Mercedes-Benz EV explosion in an underground parking lot in Incheon a week ago. 
  
The police have identified the vehicle involved as a Kia EV6 model. 
  
Residents reported flames in a parking lot to police and fire stations around 5 a.m. on Tuesday. Fire authorities dispatched 35 firefighters and 12 apparatuses, including some fire trucks, to extinguish the blaze. It was brought under control after an hour and 37 minutes, with no reported casualties. 
  
The fire department took measures to prevent the flames from spreading to nearby vehicles and moved the EV out of the parking garage during the firefighting process to minimize additional damage. 
  
“I parked and plugged in the charger around 7 p.m. the previous day,” said the vehicle’s owner, a man in his 50s.

Joong Ang Ilbo via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but great job by the firefighters for putting out the fire before it spread to other vehicles in the parking garage.

Korean authorities better get ready to respond to more of these fires as electric vehicles become more numerous:

An electric Mercedes-Benz sedan had been parked in an underground apartment garage for nearly three days before exploding on its own and catching fire, police officials said Monday.

The mysterious fire gutted the parking lot on the first basement level of an apartment building in Incheon, west of Seoul, and ravaged 40 nearby vehicles last Thursday. About 100 other cars also sustained less serious damage.

More than 20 residents were sent to hospitals for smoke inhalation before the fire was fully extinguished more than eight hours after it started. Heavy smoke made it difficult for firefighters to enter the parking lot. 

Security camera footage showed smoke billowing from the vehicle before it suddenly exploded and burst into flames.

According to police findings, the car’s owner in his 40s parked the vehicle on the evening of last Monday, and it remained untouched until it exploded in the early morning of last Thursday. 

After examining security camera footage, police confirmed that no external shock was inflicted on the vehicle while it was parked during the period.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like Hyundai is understanding that the vast majority of consumers do not want to drive an EV. I have always said the focus should be on plug in hybrid because the range anxiety is a real thing when it comes to EVs:

Hyundai Motor will boost sales of its hybrid cars and SUVs as part of its key strategy to ensure profitable growth amid falling sentiment for electric vehicles (EV), the company said Thursday during a conference call.

The decision came as demand for hybrid vehicles is on the gradual rise, after the global EV industry entered a chasm this year. The company displayed the vision after disclosing a slight fall in its first-quarter operating profit.

In a regulatory filing, the carmaker reported an operating profit of 3.55 trillion won ($2.58 billion) in the first quarter, down 2.3 percent from the previous year, hit by an overall sales fall. The company, however, generated robust sales of 40.65 trillion won, up 7.6 percent during the same period.

The company said it will place its management focus on defending its profitability by widening sales for hybrid vehicles and SUVs, at a critical juncture when the global EV industry shows no immediate signs of a rebound.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Korea is one of the places in the world where EV’s actually make sense due to the shorter distances between cities:

Electric cars accounted for 9.3 percent of newly purchased cars in South Korea last year, data showed Monday, hovering above that of other major counterparts, including the United States and Japan.

The electric vehicles (EVs) took up 162,507 of 1.74 million cars sold in South Korea in 2023, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

The ratio marked a significant rise from just 1.9 percent tallied in 2019.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

The IRA may have the intended effect of forcing foreign manufacturers such as Hyundai to increase U.S. based manufacturing and getting rid of their Chinese batteries:

Hyundai Motor Group is facing an uphill battle in the U.S. market for electric vehicles (EV), because its car brands ― Hyundai Motor, Kia and Genesis ― were not included on a list of EVs eligible for up to $7,500 in subsidies granted by the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), according to industry officials, Tuesday.

Previously, EVs could qualify for the tax credit as long as they were assembled in North America, but they had to meet stricter battery requirements.

However, detailed guidance measures released last month guarantee only a $3,750 subsidy for EVs that use at least 50 percent of battery components manufactured and assembled in North America, even if the vehicles were assembled in the region. Another $3,750 is available when at least 40 percent of key minerals used in the batteries are mined and processed in the U.S. or its free trade agreement partners.

Under the detailed guidelines of the IRA, EVs manufactured by Hyundai did not make the list. The Electrified GV70, an SUV model of the group’s luxury brand Genesis, was also excluded as it is equipped with Chinese batteries.

In addition to Hyundai Motor Group’s EVs, other brands such as Nissan, which was eligible for the subsidy because it has factories in North America, were also dropped from the list. The eligible cars are made by American brands such as Tesla, Ford, GM and Stellantis.

In response, Hyundai Motor Group said it plans to increase EV production in the U.S. over the long term, aiming to become a leader in the market for such vehicles. The group added it will actively utilize lease sales that qualify for tax credits.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is a great deal by Ford to get their battery manufacturing facility built in the US by SK:

Rain had wetted much of the clay soil on the ground — rich terracotta earth colors — creating small and large puddles everywhere around a gigantic steel structure, densely embedded with millions of steel beams. 

Yet it was another busy Sunday for many of the 800 engineers and construction workers, who had turned up for work to “get moving” on schedule for the electric vehicle battery manufacturing plants, under construction in Glendale, about 84.5 kilometers south of Louisville in the U.S. state of Kentucky. 

The 6.28 million-square-meter construction site, unveiled to South Korean media on Jan. 8, is where South Korean battery producer SK On Co. and Ford Motor Co. are building what will be the biggest EV battery plants in the United States for such a facility built on a single site. (………..) The project is part of the US$11.4 billion investment the two companies’ joint venture, BlueOval SK (BOSK), announced in September 2021, to build twin EV battery plants in Kentucky and a third one in Tennessee.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I wonder how much of the rare Earth minerals being used in the battery construction is still coming from China?