On Aug. 8, South Korea’s environment ministry said it plans to hold an emergency meeting next week to discuss fires involving electric vehicles, including fires that cause widespread damage, and to develop preventive measures against such accidents, Reuters reported.
Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and Ministry of Industry, Trade and Resources, as well as other state agencies such as the National Fire Agency, will also participate in next Monday’s (Aug. 12) meeting, the environment ministry said. The South Korean government plans to announce comprehensive measures on preventing electric vehicle fires soon, the ministry added.
Yonhap News Agency said the South Korean government will release the new measures early next month. Separately, Chosun Ilbo cited a South Korean transportation ministry official as saying that South Korea plans to require electric car makers to disclose the brands of their car batteries. The newspaper said that South Korean automakers are currently required to provide vehicle-related information such as fuel efficiency and limited details on batteries, but are not required to disclose specific battery suppliers. In response to the report, South Korea’s Ministry of Transportation declined to immediately comment.
Last week, a Mercedes-Benz electric sedan reportedly caught fire in the underground garage of an apartment building in Incheon, South Korea.
The fire lasted more than eight hours before it was extinguished, causing damage to about 140 vehicles and hospitalizing 23 people for smoke inhalation, according to Yonhap News Agency. Mercedes-Benz Korea said in a statement that they are taking the incident very seriously and plan to cooperate with relevant authorities to identify the cause.
The Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters (The Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters) said in a report released in February that 1,399 fires occurred in underground parking garages in South Korea between 2013 and 2022, 43.7 percent of which were caused by vehicles, and that 43.7 percent of vehicle fires that occurred in underground garages Fifty-three percent of the fires were caused by power sources.
Analysts cautioned that government authorities and the EV industry need to find ways to ease public concerns about safety in the EV industry as soon as possible.
Esther Yim, an analyst at Samsung Securities in South Korea, said, “The series of EV fires in underground parking garages has made consumers increasingly distrustful of EVs, which could prolong the current downturn in the EV market.” She called on the EV industry to take steps to reassure consumers.