BMW and Ford Kuga hybrids at risk of fire. Problems with defective batteries
The hybrid is so good that it is… incendiary, especially if it is BMW or Ford with Samsung batteries. After the US manufacturer Ford, BMW now also has problems with plug-in hybrid batteries: in fact, the battery cells can overheat and catch fire. Customers who therefore receive notification of having installed defective batteries should at this point completely refrain from recharging the car. All officially confirmed by BMW.
Several models of the Munich house are affected by this problem with about 27,000 cars affected, belonging to different vehicle series. These are new models such as Plug-in SUVs such as X1, X2, X3 and X5. There are also isolated problems with the BMW 2, 3, 5 and 7 series. The Countryman hybrid model of the British subsidiary Mini is also affected by the defect.
As BMW states, the risk of overheating exists only in a small part of the affected model series, where incorrectly manufactured battery cells have been installed. BMW attributes the problems to contamination in production at a supplier.
The automaker declined to comment which cell manufacturer is responsible. It has been said in industrial circles that BMW, like its American competitor Ford, receives a large part of its cells from Korean supplier Samsung SDI. Cell manufacturers are struggling to meet the rapidly growing needs of car manufacturers. Samsung SDI has now tripled the capacity of its new European plant near Budapest, but it is possible that shortcuts have been taken to accelerate production and have caused this problem.
In Germany alone, nearly 2,000 vehicles are suffering from overheating problems. At the same time, however, BMW blocked the delivery of new cars in order to check the cells.
In Germany, the vehicles already delivered have been recalled to the workshop after consultations with the federal agency on road safety, and the Munich-based company hopes to be able to solve the problem by the end of October, at least for the cars already produced.
Ford customers wait even longer. The European headquarters in Cologne does not foresee a specific period within which to solve the problem of delivering new cars. Ford has told customers that the problem will take weeks or months to resolve. The most affected model is the Kuga SUV, of which some models have caught fire. The problem is that the same defect is appearing in several cars delivered in the USA, where the risk of lawsuits from customers is much higher.
Thanks to our Telegram channel you can stay updated on the publication of new articles of Economic Scenarios.
The article Hybrid BMW and Ford Kuga at risk of fire. Problems with defective batteries comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/inbride-bmw-e-ford-kuga-ibride-a-rischio-incendio-problemi-con-batterie-difettate/ on Wed, 14 Oct 2020 19:20:35 +0000.