2020: THE YEAR OF THE GREAT LITHIUM BATTERY RECALL Worries about the dangers of high tech lithium battery fires have been a concern from the earliest days of the first lithium cells. It is still a problem. With mass adoption in the EV market looming — some are predicting that there will be 700 million on the roads in 30 years’ time — it is worth looking under the bonnet just to check the battery or the BMS.
Li-ion batteries under the spotlight again as LG Chem recalls home packs ... GM recalls 68,667 Bolts Another day, another lithium fire. Or that’s the way it seems. The amount of lithium fire recalls in electric vehicles hit a record high in 2020. That’s according to an IdTechEx research paper on thermal management published in early December. In China alone, between January and October, 10,579 battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids were recalled due to fire hazards across seven OEMs. Among major automakers — see boxed item facing — the second half of last year has proven to be the worst six months for lithium EV battery recalls ever. The cost of these recalls is not frequently mentioned but they can be astronomical. The cost of the recall of the Galaxy Note 7 in 2016, for example, was reckoned to be at least $5.3 billion. What is also not widely known is that reputable world-class companies still find difficulties in solving the fire hazard. Sony, for example, had major recalls for its laptop and notepad batteries in 2006, 2008, 2014, 2016 and 2017. The latest lithium battery recall comes from LG Energy Solution, the battery firm spun off from LG Chem. On December 16 it recalled its lithium-ion home battery systems in Michigan, US — just over a week after it launched a new line of the products. Five reports of LG Chem RESU 10H fires, resulting in minor property damage but no injuries, were mentioned on the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Recalls page. “The home batteries can overheat, posing a risk of fire and emission of
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harmful smoke,” says the document, which specifies that 1,815 units sold between January 2017 to March 2019 are subject to recall. They sold for around $8,000 each. A new range of LG RESU home batteries was launched at an online event on December 7 in Europe and the US and Australia on December 10. The new LG RESU Prime product
comprises the LG RESU 10H and 16H Prime products, offering ‘largecapacity, high-powered batteries courtesy of industry-leading energy density, while allowing much needed sustainable energy use through its proactive efforts towards fair cobalt procurement’. There is no suggestion that the new range poses a fire risk, ‘having passed
TIMELINE: LITHIUM’S BURNING FROM LAST SUMMER TO NOW
December 2020 On December 16 LG Chem recalled its lithiumion home battery systems in Michigan, US — just over a week after it launched a new line of the products.
November 2020 Polestar recalled the majority of its Polestar 2 models sold globally to replace faulty battery inverters. Some 4,586 vehicles were affected by the recall.
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