Ionity will replace the chargers at its station in Elverum, Norway, after a fault in the equipment blew the high-voltage safety fuses of several electric vehicles, leaving them unable to drive, one of them since June 30.
“The investigation uncovered a fault in the charging equipment, and the manufacturer of the chargers has confirmed the fault,” Ionity told Trondheim newspaper Adressa.
“We have therefore decided to replace the affected chargers. The replacement is planned for this week,” the company added, according to a translation posted on X by Norway-based EV reviewer William Jarbeaux.
Ionity received six reports of incidents at the station on the days in question, the company told Adressa, according to a LinkedIn post by the son of one affected owner.
Jarbeaux wrote on Thursday that six cars were affected, citing Adressa, which reported on October 12 that several electric vehicles had been damaged at a charging station.
Ionity has not said publicly which models were hit or what the fault was.
What Happened at the Site
The damage centered on the cars’ pyrofuses, single-use devices that cut the battery off from the rest of the high-voltage system in milliseconds.
One owner and his wife were driving home from Oslo when they stopped to charge their Volkswagen ID. Buzz at the Ionity station in Elverum, their son wrote on LinkedIn last week.
After about 10 minutes they heard a snap, charging stopped and the car would not start again, he wrote.
The same happened to two other cars that were charging at the same time, according to the post.
The ID. Buzz has been at a workshop since June 30, and the owners have not been given a rental car, he said.
Jarbeaux said he checked the site on Thursday and found all of its Ekoenergetyka chargers unavailable, while an Alpitronic charger at the same location was still live.
A screenshot he posted from Ionity’s app showed six charging points listed as “Not available” and two 400 kW points still in service.
The ID. Buzz owner is still waiting to learn who will pay a bill of NOK 115,000 ($12,100), Adressa reported.
The headline of the paywalled article quotes the owner as saying “we feel like a ball being tossed around.”
Jarbeaux said the NOK 115,000 figure was the quote to replace the pyrofuse on the ID. Buzz.
Ionity’s insurance company is working on the matter, Jarbeaux said, citing the Adressa article.
The owners’ own insurer, Frende, has classed the damage as mechanical breakdown, which their comprehensive policy does not cover, and the case remains unresolved after several rounds with Ionity and its insurer, the son wrote.
A Blown Pyrofuse
A pyrofuse uses a small explosive charge to drive a piston that cuts the busbar, disconnecting the circuit in under a millisecond, according to an explainer from Chinese pyrofuse maker HIITIO.
The device is triggered by a signal from the battery management system or the airbag control unit when they detect short circuits, overcurrent events or crash signals, HIITIO said.
“Once triggered, it cannot be reset and must be replaced,” the company said, which is why an affected car cannot be driven until it is repaired.
Neither Ionity nor Ekoenergetyka has said publicly what in the charging equipment caused the cars’ systems to fire the fuses.
Ionity’s 500 kW Pilot
Jarbeaux identified the station as Ionity’s only Ekoenergetyka pilot site in Norway.
Ionity commissioned Ekoenergetyka’s shared-power system for the first time at its site in Elverum, which it described late last year as “perfectly placed on the key Østerdalen route for long-distance journeys between Oslo, Trondheim and the wider inland region.”
The Elverum park pairs two Ekoenergetyka DLBS power cabinets, sharing 800 kW in steps of 66.7 kW, with three Sat 400 chargers offering two CCS points each, for six points in total.
That layout matches the six unavailable points in Jarbeaux’s screenshot, alongside two points rated above 400 kW.
The failure that disabled the ID. Buzz on June 30 came about seven months after the pilot opened.
The system allowed a single car to charge at up to 500 kW, above the 400 kW peak of Ionity’s parks built with Alpitronic hardware at the time.
Ekoenergetyka had said in mid-2025 that Ionity was testing the system under real-world conditions, with the first pilot installations expected that autumn.
Jarbeaux wrote in February that the site offered “800 kW, 3 dispensers, 6 plugs.”
A Supplier Since 2023
Ionity named Ekoenergetyka as a high-power charging supplier in September 2023, joining existing suppliers Alpitronic, Tritium and ABB.
Founded in 2009 and based in Zielona Góra in western Poland, Ekoenergetyka says it has supplied Ionity with 300 stations using 600 Axon Side 350 kW chargers, with installations in Croatia, Slovenia and Finland.
Ionity’s statement refers only to “the affected chargers,” and it is not clear whether any other part of its Ekoenergetyka fleet is under review.
Ionity, a joint venture of BMW Group, Ford, Hyundai Motor Group, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen Group, with BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners as a financial investor, operates more than 700 stations in 24 European countries.
The company has also been testing Alpitronic’s HYC1000 megawatt charging system at a site near Munich, which can deliver up to 600 kW to a single car.
A Canadian Precedent
In Hope, British Columbia, a short circuit inside a battery module of a FreeWire Boost Charger sent abnormal voltage through a charging adapter in August 2024, causing an arc flash and explosion, provincial regulator Technical Safety BC found in a report revised in October 2025.
The regulator found that the charger, not the adapter, caused that incident.
In Norway, the open question is who pays for repairs to cars that could no longer move after plugging into a public charger.
