South Korea urges automakers to reveal electric vehicle battery brands after fires

South Korea will urge automakers operating in the country to identify the batteries used in their electric vehicles, the government said Tuesday, as authorities seek to calm public safety concerns after a series of fires involving electric vehicles.

The government said it would advise carmakers to voluntarily disclose the information to ease fears after an electric vehicle fire broke out in an underground parking lot in the city of Incheon, west of the capital Seoul, on August 1 and caused great damage.

“Such information about batteries has not been available to the public before and the measure is to reduce the anxiety of electric vehicle owners about the fire,” the government’s policy coordination office said in a statement.

The fire, which appeared to start spontaneously in a Mercedes-Benz EV with Farasis Energy 688567.SS batteries, took eight hours to extinguish, destroying or damaging about 140 cars and forcing some residents of the apartments above to move to shelters.

In recent days, some car companies have started naming the battery manufacturers they use.

Hyundai Motor and Genesis EV use batteries made by South Korea’s LG Energy Solution (LGES) and SK On, as well as China’s CATL 300750.SZ, its website showed.

Kia Corp said the batteries installed in its electric vehicles are mostly from LGES and SK On, with two models powered by CATL.

Mercedes Benz Korea mostly uses batteries from China’s CATL and Farasis Energy and some from LGES and SK On, it said, adding that it is cooperating to determine the cause of the fire since Aug. 1 and plans to offer free inspections for car owners. electric vehicles.

BMW Korea mostly uses batteries supplied by Samsung SDI 006400.KS and a few models are powered by CATL, its website showed.

SMALL STEP

LGES, SK On and Samsung SDI declined to comment on EVs using their batteries, while CATL and Farasis did not respond to a request for comment.

South Korean battery makers had no reason to object to specifying where their energy sources were used, although the public should not assume batteries are always to blame for electric vehicle fires, three industry sources said.

Experts say making car companies identify batteries would give consumers more options, but some wonder how it would improve safety given the lack of definitive data on which battery brands are more prone to fires.

Kim Jonghoon, a professor at Chungnam National University who studies electric vehicle management systems, said revealing the battery is a small step toward resolving the situation.

“We also need to advance battery management systems to have them equipped with more sophisticated and earlier warnings… EV phobia will take a while,” Kim said.

South Korea’s government said it plans to conduct emergency inspections of fire-fighting equipment in multi-unit residential buildings of certain sizes to ease residents’ fears.

Auto experts say electric vehicle fires burn differently than those in cars with internal combustion engines, often lasting longer and being harder to put out because they tend to reignite.

The Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters said in a report released in February that 1,399 fires occurred in underground parking lots in South Korea between 2013 and 2022, with 43.7 percent attributed to vehicles. It said electrical sources accounted for 53 percent of car fires in underground garages.

(Reporting by Yang and Park; Editing by Ed Davies and David Holmes)