Hyundai Kona Electric Car Explodes and Blows the Garage Roof

Lithium ion batteries are said to susceptible to extreme temperatures.

The Hyundai Kona EV has a claimed range of 452 Km per charge.

(Photo: Hyundai)

The Hyundai Kona is an electric car that recently launched in India, however it seems to be making the news for the wrong reasons.

According to Canadian news website, CBC News, a Hyundai Kona caught fire and exploded inside a garage in Île-Bizard in Montreal.

There have been no casualties in the incident, however the explosion has done a lot of damage to the property with the garage door and the roof both destroyed. The explosion’s intensity blew the garage door off and sent it flying across the street.

The Hyundai Kona has been launched in India.

Piero Cosentino, the owner of the car had purchased the electric four-wheeler this year in March. He added that he didn’t have the car plugged into the charging station and it was standing idle. 

The car wasn’t plugged to a charging station as reported by the owner.

Firemen who rushed to the scene didn’t observe any external factor that could have caused the fire.

Electric cars are powered by lithium Ion batteries which are said to be susceptible to extreme temperatures and tend to catch fire in such conditions.

There are researchers around the world working on ways to ensure that these batteries don’t catch fire, however, the project’s implementation will take some time.

There have been earlier incidents of Telsa cars catching fire which also run on lithium ion batteries, however, no car has made the news which exploded like the Kona did in this case.

Considering India is host to a lot of places that have extremely hot conditions (Delhi being a prime example), this ‘explosive’ incident could dent Hyundai’s plans of selling its electric car in India which costs Rs 25.30 lakh before taxes are included.