Jaguar’s safety engineers had a scary moment in September when they received a field report that an I-Pace had experienced a “thermal overload.” That’s bad news no matter what, but the EV in question was supposed to have already had a recall repair completed to mitigate the risk of its batteries overheating.
The vehicle was one of the 6,367 I-Pace involved in a recall in order to fix an issue that had led to eight battery fires in the U.S. The company’s software fix was designed to help better monitor battery temperatures and reduce the risk of thermal overload.
Unfortunately, in order to complete the recall repair, dealers had to use the right tools but that didn’t happen, as Jaguar reports that a retailer used a non-approved service diagnostic tool.
Read: Jaguar Recalls I-Pace EV After 8 Battery-Related Fires In The U.S.
Although Jaguar, the owners, and the dealer thought the update had been properly installed on the vehicle in question, it had not. The automaker then sought to determine how many vehicles might be on the same boat. Jaguar discovered that 199 Jaguar I-Paces in the U.S. may have not been successfully updated with the new software.
These vehicles are at risk of having their batteries overheat. I-Pace owners can check if their vehicle is included in this group by using the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s VIN lookup tool.
Those affected by this issue can expect to be notified by Jaguar on December 15. They will be asked to return their vehicle to a nearby dealer, where the right diagnostic tool will be used to install the updated software correctly.
