Volvo Trucks North America and Mack Trucks are initiating a recall for the majority of their electric trucks produced in the last four years due to a potential problem leading to battery fires.
This marks the fourth instance of recalls for these trucks since their commencement of mass production in 2022. The recent recall pertains to 173 Volvo trucks and nine Mack trucks manufactured between April 1, 2019, and February 10, 2023.
Battery-powered electric trucks remain relatively novel in the market, and certain challenges encountered are typical for emerging products. Similar to conventional diesel trucks, these new technologies can encounter glitches that necessitate rectification.
Over-torquing can lead to debris in batteries
The most recent recalls for the two Volvo Group brands pertain to an excessive application of torque on buss bars, as indicated in a notice on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website. A buss bar is an electrical component utilized for gathering electric power from incoming sources and distributing it to outgoing circuits.
If the rivet nut is over-torqued, it can lead to a fracture that generates debris within the battery pack. This debris accumulation could trigger a short circuit within the battery pack, escalating the potential for a fire. Volvo attributes the issue to inadequate process controls during assembly tooling and battery assembly rework.
To address potential battery overheating, Volvo’s battery thermal management system is designed to alert the driver via a malfunction light on the instrument cluster.
Battery with nonspreading fire discovered in shipment
On July 5, Volvo identified a battery issue when a battery from an Akasol plant in Ohio, which was sent to their Virginia assembly plant, had an isolated nonspreading fire within an Akasol Gen 3 battery unit. Notably, no other batteries within the same shipment encountered similar incidents. This discovery prompted an immediate safety investigation, leading to a stop-delivery directive on July 12.
An earlier Akasol battery problem in October resulted in the recall of eight VNR electric trucks and one Mack unit. Despite this, both Volvo and Mack have not reported any occurrences of this issue in their operational fleets. Approximately 15% of the trucks implicated in the recent recall are anticipated to be affected by the problem. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recall designations are 23V-512 for Volvo and 23V-514 for Mack. Dealers were informed of the recall on July 28, with customer notifications scheduled for September 15.
In a separate incident, another battery exhibiting signs of internal electric arcing was identified during Akasol’s assembly operations. Akasol, based in Germany, is a subsidiary of BorgWarner Inc., a Tier 1 supplier that acquired Akasol for $880 million in 2021.
Another electric truck manufacturer, Nikola, experienced a battery fire on June 28 in one of its trucks located outside its headquarters in Phoenix. The company reported that one truck caught fire, causing damage to four other vehicles. The truck responsible for the fire had a recurrence of fire in late July, which was subsequently extinguished. The battery in question was produced by Romeo Power. Nikola had acquired Romeo Power through an all-stock acquisition in August 2022, and the process of liquidating Romeo’s assets is currently underway.
Interestingly, BorgWarner had previously established a joint venture with Romeo in 2019, which was dissolved in 2022 around the same time as the completion of BorgWarner’s acquisition of Akasol.
