Kia EV6 Incident

Following receipt of 10/27/22 VOQ#5 (ODI 11491182), involving a 22MY EV6, Kia attempted to identify the VIN which was completed on 10/31/22. The VOQ alleges that the vehicle was being driven on the freeway with lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control when the customer took his eyes off the road to grab something from the backseat and claims the system either disengaged without warning or decided to steer to the left. Customer further alleged the vehicle drifted 2 lanes to the left and made impact with the center road barrier resulting in the deployment of the airbag and non-specified injuries. Customer further alleges that the HDA (Highway Driving Assist) may not have been functioning properly. Customer did not contact Kia regarding the incident. The vehicle was instead located a Copart facility. Kia Customer Care is in the process of reaching out to the insurance company to obtain permission to inspect the vehicle. Kia has no further information at this time. *11/9/22 10-Day Update* Kia is tentatively scheduled to inspect the subject vehicle located Copart in San Martin, CA on 11/17/22. At that time, Kia will also download/read available EDR data. As a result, Kia has no additional information at this time and has not received any contact from the customer. *12/15/22 Monthly Update* Kia NASO Engineers inspected the subject EV6 vehicle (VOQ 11491182) on 11/17/22 Copart in San Martin, CA. Based on the inspection and the EDR report, no faults were found with any of the vehicle's systems and appears to be lack of driver control as mentioned by the driver in the VOQ. And per Matthew Yandrick of ODI's request, a copy of the EDR report was provided to NHTSA via the secure link-SLFTS under confidentially on 11/30/22. *1/17/23 Monthly Update* On 1/4/23, Kia received an email from ODI Electronics Engineer, Matthew Yandrick, requesting additional information regarding this incident. Below are the 3 questions from Matthew and Kia's responses which were provided to Matthew on 1/11/23: 1) Was the steering angle parameter recorded? The EDR shows a steering input parameter. Kia response: Yes, steering angle parameter is recorded and is identified on the report as being 0 degrees which represents a steering wheel pointed approximately straight ahead and is not a null value. Note that the steering angle is reported in increments of 5 degrees in the EDR of this vehicle. 2) The consumer alleges Lane Keep Assist was engaged. Has Kia been able to confirm this? Kia response: No. There is no data in the EDR of this vehicle regarding any Lane Safety function status, and we have not been able to confirm if it was engaged at the time of the crash. Also, due to front end damage causing system errors, engineers were unable to access the driver-selectable settings for LKA to determine the function status (Off, Warning Only, or Active Assist). 3) The consumer alleges the incident occurred on a multi-lane road with a center barrier. Can Kia confirm the location of the incident? Kia response: This was an incident initiated from a VOQ and not by a communication from the consumer to Kia and thus Kia did not receive the location information. However, per your request, Kia has attempted to reach out to the consumer to see if such information is available and awaiting response. *2/15/23 Monthly Update* On 1/19/23, customer contact achieved. Engineer determined customer may not have understood limitations of HDA and LFA disablement when driver hands off wheel.