Hyundai has announced the recall of nearly 5,400 Ioniq 9 electric crossovers in the United States over a problem with the second-row folding seats: their power mechanism may fail to detect a child or another obstacle and keep folding with excessive force, the website infohub.kz reports.
The situation looks suspiciously familiar: Hyundai had previously halted sales of the Palisade over a similar defect that led to a tragedy involving a two-year-old child.
The recall covers 5,360 Ioniq 9 vehicles built between March 17, 2025, and May 4, 2026. These are vehicles equipped with power-operated second-row seats.
The defect is that the second-row power mechanism may not react to an obstacle while folding. As a result, the seat keeps moving with force exceeding the limit set by the manufacturer.
Hyundai has received five complaints from owners, with two cases reporting suspected minor injuries. The company stresses, however, that the design of the Ioniq 9 seats differs from that used in the Palisade: they have a different architecture, motors, software and component suppliers.
Hyundai began investigating the problem in March 2026, and after testing decided to carry out a recall and change the software logic governing the seat power mechanism.
Owners will have their software version checked and an update installed at a dealer. For vehicles that support over-the-air updates, the fix will be available remotely. Official notifications will begin going out on November 9. Until then, Hyundai asks owners to use the automatic seat-folding function with caution and to keep children out of the seats' path of movement.
Notably, the Ioniq 9 is far from the only vehicle with this kind of problem. In 2026, the Kia Telluride and Cadillac Vistiq were recalled over similar defects involving power seats.
Earlier, Kursiv Auto reported that Hyundai had recalled nearly 100,000 Tucson vehicles over an instrument panel failure.