EVs are less mechanically complicated than their combustion kin, but that doesn’t mean they’re immune to component failure. The Integrated Charge Control Unit (ICCU) has been the main failure point in recent Hyundai/Kia EVs, and ICCU Observer is an attempt to log data from the systems to find the culprit.
The ICCU handles all charging and voltage conversion duties from 800 V down to 12 V in the E-GMP platform EVs from Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. The main failure mode appears to be when the circuit charging the 12 V fails, eventually rendering the vehicle inoperable. While the rate of failure is relatively low, the exact numbers are unknown, and Hyundai has remained quiet on if they know what’s causing it.
Unsurprisingly, speculation is rampant with owners experiencing failures relaying similarities and differences to others with the same problem. In an effort to bring actual data to the process, [broadwall] has started working on an open data set of information collected over the vehicle’s OBD II port in an effort to pinpoint similarities between the vehicles that have experienced failures.
Hyundai is currently replacing the failed units under warranty (recently expanded to 15 years in most markets), but that’s little comfort when you’re sitting on the side of the road waiting for a tow. These failures stand out in an otherwise easy to maintain platform, so hopefully this effort will lead to a permanent fix instead of merely swapping out for a new unit.
If you’d like to explore data analysis a little further, how about using astrophotography to detect exoplanets or learning more from Stanford?
Less mechanically complicated, that is true, no doubt.
The real problem is in the added electronics, which is way more complicated and will most likely be the reason that in about 100 years there will be no electric cars of this era in a drivable state in a museum, while the by the same time a 200 year old mechanical car will be perfectly fine and running. Just like there are already EV’s of a 100 years old in a museum right now, that because they have no electronics and require very simple tools to keep them running and even without mechanical drawings a good mechanic can figure out what’s wrong just by looking at it and some trial and error.
It’s not that electronics are bad in general, their only real problem is that they evolve too quickly to find a replacement part in the long run, sure there might be an equivalent for some of the parts, but not for all of of the parts. Although I’m sure there will be workarounds if you really want to, but although it may work, it won’t be the same. Just as the same discussion the retro scene is having when an FPGA replaces complicated logic circuitry. Then there is firmware… and the tools required to maintain/modify the firmware. Even today it’s difficult to keep a 10 year old development system running with all the cloud requirements and forced system requirements.
It’s the price we pay for progress in the same way that in about a 100 years we will be finding an ancient 300 year old perfectly working broom, but not a merely 50 year old working Roomba.