Finally, clarity has been made on what happened, and it seems - as originally hypothesized - that the problem arises within the batteries used by Hyundai, supplied by LG Chem and produced at the Chinese plant in Nanjing. A bent anode is responsible for the short circuit that has set several Kona EVs on fire, and for this reason Hyundai will be relying on LG to cover a large part of the costs of the recall campaign.
Hyundai and LG are working together in order to start and complete the recall campaign as soon as possible, but it will not be easy considering that the defect is potentially present on more than 80,000 vehicles, including approximately 75,000 Kona EVs produced between 2017 and 2020. The details of the agreement between Hyundai and LG have not yet been officially disclosed, but it is an important precedent for the automotive sector, in which the supplier of defective batteries will have to largely cover the costs of a recall campaign: according to some estimates, LG will cover more than 60% of the cost.
We anticipated the possibility of Hyundai replacing the defective batteries with an equivalent model produced by SK Innovation, another Korean company a which was recently accused by LG Chem of violating industrial secrets regarding the production of batteries: LG won the dispute and this led to the International Trade Commission (ITC) of the USA to ban SK from the marketing of its batteries on American territory for 10 years. From the frying pan to the grill, as they say.