Jeep announces recall for almost 200k plug-in SUVs that are at-risk of spontaneous combustion
Electric vehicles are already an exaggerated hazard on the road—weight and risk of fire—but now, a quality control problem is exacerbating the latter of those factors. From AP News comes this story:
Jeep is recalling more than 194,000 plug-in hybrid SUVs worldwide because they can catch fire with the ignition turned off.
In addition, Jeep is urging owners not to charge the SUVs and to park them outdoors and away from structures until they are repaired.
According to the same article, Stellantis, the company which owns the Jeep brand, says the recall covers two models, the Wrangler 4xe (2020–2024) and the Grand Cherokee 4xe (2022–2024), with most of the affected vehicles being within North America.
The solutions offered by Jeep? Well, as you read above, don’t park your vehicle anywhere near a habitable structure, and don’t have any charge in the battery: “The company says the risk of fire is reduced when the battery charge is depleted.”
Ummm… what? Is this a joke? How did these two “solutions” make it past the public relations team?
E.V.s are largely concentrated in urban areas, because they’re largely purchased by progressive individuals who live in big cities, so I’m not exactly sure where Jeep expects these people to find a big open lot to park these fire hazards. Secondly, after a very brief investigative session, it seems as though these cars don’t need the battery to be charged to run (they’re “hybrid plug-ins” and they’ll consume gas for energy), but the vehicles are equipped with a “regenerative braking” system, meaning normal driving will charge the battery system. (The jury’s still out, but it seems like these vehicles may have one or two batteries on board.) As I understand it, there is no way to entirely switch away from the hybrid operation, meaning the “depleted battery” solution was asinine.
According to MotorTrend, the Wrangler 4xe debuted in 2021, and per a Jeep website, the Grand Cherokee 4xe debuted in 2022—so this quality control combustion problem seems to impact vehicles from the very first second they rolled off the assembly line.
Another angle to consider is the potential for this sort of technology to be weaponized. What is a quality control issue now could very well be the warfare of tomorrow; arson is one of the world’s oldest weapons in conflict. Spontaneously combusting vehicles… kind of like spontaneously exploding pagers? Doesn’t seem that farfetched to me.
Image: Free image, Pixabay license.