Hyundai recalled some 77,000 Kona EVs in 2020 due to the risk of them bursting into flames from possibly defective battery packs and even though it supposedly fixed all vehicles that potentially had problems, the fires didn’t completely go away. Now another electric Kona caught fire while it was parked in an underground parking lot in Quebec City, Canada.
Firefighters responded to the call but they say they first had to ventilate the underground part of the building in order to gain access to the vehicle in order to extract it from the garage. They quickly managed to do that and even though they say it was the battery pack that was the source of the fire, this particular Hyundai Kona Electric has much less damage compared to others we’ve seen.
It is also noted that the vehicle was parked under a sprinkler for the emergency fire suppression system and even though the battery pack (the source of the fire) was under the car where water couldn’t quite reach it, it probably played its part in keeping the fire contained and preventing it from spreading to other cars parked nearby.
It was not noted in any of the reports that we found whether or not the vehicle had been plugged in and charging when the fire started.
The fire was reported at around 4 AM and firefighters decided to evacuate the entire eight-story building to make sure everyone was safe. Even though the fire was contained and flames were never visible from the outside, smoke had apparently entered the building’s ventilation ducts, posing health risks and making the evacuation necessary.
Everybody was given the green light to return to their homes two hours later and the fire reportedly caused no damage to the building or any of the other cars parked there at the time.
