LG Energy Solution who has a poor reputation in Australia due to their batteries catching fire and in one incident burning a house down has moved to expand its battery safety diagnostic software in response to the rising demand from third parties such as solar companies and EV manufacturers, who in the past have used LG batteries as an OEM source.
Recently the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission had to negotiate with LG to increase its efforts to alert and protect consumers from faulty LG solar storage batteries which were overheating and catching fire without warning across Australia.
Several brands in the solar market including SolaX, Opal, Redback, Red Earth, Eguana and Varta were sourcing their batteries from LG Energy a division of LG Group that also owns LG Electronics.
LG’s problems over faulty batteries were not isolated to solar batteries it also included problems with their electric car batteries that are used by several leading automotive manufacturers.
Tesla recently revealed to the South Korean government that they were using LG Energy batteries.
Earlier this month in the South Korean Government urged carmakers to voluntarily disclose the names of their battery suppliers after a fire broke out in the underground car park of an apartment complex.
The blaze, caused by a Mercedes-Benz EQE electric sedan, damaged around 140 cars.
In Australia LG has issued recalls affecting around 18,000 affected batteries.
As of last month 4,400, batteries were yet to be located.
The recent undertaking accepted by the ACCC contains commitments by LG to undertake a widespread advertising campaign to alert consumers about safety risks with the batteries subject to the recalls.
and to use its best endeavours to ensure that all affected batteries are remedied within 12 months.
LG Energy management admit that because of the recent EV fires, automakers are under pressure to enhance battery safety. They claim that the development of new safety software ” is both complex and resource-intensive”.
In an effort to stop third parties dropping the use of LG Energy batteries the business is now tipping resources into the new software by using a database that includes analysis of more than 130,000 battery cells and over 1,000 modules.
LG claims its safety diagnosis software is backed by solid empirical evidence.
“The technology has already been implemented in more than 100,000 electric vehicles” they claim.
It’s designed detect a range of potential battery issues, such as voltage drops during charging, internal short circuits, abnormal degradation and what they describe as “lithium over-precipitation”.
The invest is designed allay growing fears among electric vehicle drivers of battery-caused EV fires amid a global slowdown in EV sales.
The South Korean battery maker said it will work closely with automakers to deploy its battery management system (BMS) and collaborate with companies such as Qualcomm Technologies Inc. and Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) to advance its BMS technology further.
