What happens when spending $70,000 to signal virtue with your fancy EV goes wrong?FIRE!
Mercedes-Benz USA has announced a recall of 11,895 electric vehicles due to potentially faulty cellsin the automobiles’ high-voltage battery packsthat could lead to a fire,like what happened in front of a MBZ dealer in Malaysia in 2024 - though that one was in the middle of charging, whilethisrecall says they can 'spontaneously catch fire' either while parked or while driving.
The move comes after the NHTSA issued a safety recallnoticeposted on X on Feb. 12 announcing that it affected1,708 Mercedes-Benz EQB 350 4Matic battery-powered SUVs model years 2022-2024. On top of that,3,674 Mercedes-Benz EQB 250+ hybrid compact SUVs model years 2023-2024 and 6,513 2022-2024 EQB 300 4Matic vehicleswere recalled.
According to the agency,the vehicles could spontaneously catch fire either while parked or while drivingdue to an internal short circuit in the automobile’s high-voltage battery power supply. The issue stems from variations in the battery manufacturing process, the notice stated.
“Certain battery cells in the high-voltage battery, from an early production period, are considered to be less robust against different stress factors potentially occurring during the life of the vehicle,” Mercedes-Benz said.
“If a thermal incident were to occur during driving, the driver would be made aware of the issue by a high-voltage battery warning malfunction message in the instrument cluster. Should the thermal incident occur while the vehicle is parked, the driver would not receive a warning.”
In early 2024,an EQB caught fire while charging outside a MBZ dealershipin Jahor Bahru.
As theEpoch Timesnotes further, the lithium-ion batteries were manufactured by China-based Farasis Energy.
Mercedes-Benz said that after being made aware of vehicles catching fire it issued a software update to remedy the problem. However, in November 2025, two vehicles located in Europe combusted after receiving the software update, triggering an in-depth analysis of the efficacy of the software remedy in markets outside of China.
In December 2025 and January 2026, Mercedes-Benz began working with the battery supplier to tear down and test battery packs and cells. It also conducted an on-site inspection of production methods at Farasis Energy’s manufacturing facilities in Ganzhou in southeastern China.
Source: ZeroHedge News
