If recalling EVs were an Olympic sport, the Hyundai Kona Electric just went for gold. In the worst possible way.

Hyundai is recalling 82,000 EVs globally to replace the LG Chem battery packs inside because there’s a potential fire risk. Oops a daisy. It’s kind of a bad look for the world’s fifth-largest carmaker - especially as the company pivots heavily towards EVs with brand Ioniq.

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Around the world there will be 75,680 Kona Electric models plus 5715 Ioniq Electric and 305 City buses recalled. Apparently there have been 12 fires, worldwide, but what’s prompted this somewhat expensive recall is the fact that in this last reported fire (ie, fire number 12) a software update that was thought to have solved the potential problem, had already been completed.

That’s part of a Hyundai statement from Wednesday this week, and speaking of ‘high financial burden’ it’s going to cost about one trillion South Korean won, or $900 million US dollars, which is $1.15 billion Shitsvillian micro-pesos, more or less.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall for the high-level tantrums between senior Hyundai dudes and their opposite numbers at LG Chem, which makes the batteries, in this case at a factory in Nanjing, China.

LG is actually the world’s largest EV battery supplier. The company also supplied the batteries for the Chevy Bolt, 69,000 of which were recalled for a similar potential pants-pooping proclivity recently.

Those batteries, however, used different internal components, and they were made at a different LG plant, this time in South Korea.
The Bolts were recalled worldwide after several reported fires.

Attribution of blame here is going to be a big deal - like, is it Hyundai’s fault, or GM’s in the case of the Bolt, or LG’s? LG Chem doesn’t really have much of a reputational stake here either way in the minds of ordinary car buyers, so the dent in the reputation will attach almost entirely to Hyundai, but the cost will probably be shared between Hyundai and LG in this case.