Hyundai recalls Ioniq 9 SUVs whose power seats can trap a child

Hyundai is recalling 5,360 of its 2026 Ioniq 9 electric SUVs because the power-folding second-row seats can keep moving after touching a child, raising the risk the seat traps them against the frame. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration logged the action on Sept. 22, 2026, as campaign number 26V588, covering Limited, Calligraphy and Calligraphy Design trims built between March 2025 and May 2026. Hyundai has told owners to keep children away from the second row whenever the seats are powering through a fold or slide until a fix is installed.

The company says it has received five complaints tied to the defect, two of which described minor injuries, though no crashes have been linked to the problem.

A seat that doesn’t know it hit someone

The defect sits in the software that runs the Ioniq 9’s power-folding second-row seats. According to NHTSA’s own recall record, those seats “may fail to detect a person” while moving, so instead of stopping or reversing on contact, they can continue folding, stowing or sliding into whoever or whatever is in the way. NHTSA’s consequence summary is blunt about who is most at risk: “a person, especially a child, may become trapped by a rear powered seat, increasing the risk of injury.”

Hyundai’s own account of the defect, reported by My Pro Street, describes children standing or sitting near the seat while it folds as the specific scenario the company is trying to prevent. The seats in question sit in the middle row of the three-row SUV, the row most families use for child and booster seats on everyday trips, and the power-fold function exists so drivers can flatten that row from a control panel without physically climbing into the cabin to fold each seat by hand.

The convenience feature is exactly what turns the defect into a hazard: a seat a driver cannot see moves on command from the front of the vehicle, and if the sensor that is supposed to stop it on contact fails to register a small body, nothing tells the driver to stop. Hyundai has not said how many of the five reported complaints involved a child specifically, only that two described minor injuries.

Fixing 5,360 SUVs without a shop visit

Hyundai plans to correct the defect with revised seat-controller software, and most owners will not need to schedule a dealer appointment at all. The company says the fix can be pushed as an over-the-air update to eligible vehicles, with a dealer visit available for anyone whose car cannot take the update remotely, at no charge either way. The Auto Wire reports that owner notification letters are scheduled to go out starting Nov. 9, 2026, well after the software fix is expected to already be rolling out to affected vehicles.

Owners who want to check sooner can look up their vehicle identification number through NHTSA’s recall database, which Hyundai says has listed the affected VINs since mid-September, or call the automaker’s recall line directly.

A second seat recall in six months

A Hyundai power seat drew NHTSA’s attention once before this year. AutoGuide notes the Ioniq 9 recall arrives roughly six months after Hyundai pulled in tens of thousands of Palisade SUVs over a related seat problem. That earlier recall followed the death of a 2-year-old girl in Ohio on March 7, 2026, in an incident involving a 2026 Palisade; Hyundai announced a stop-sale and recalled more than 68,000 Palisades in the U.S. and Canada nine days later, saying the incident was still under investigation.

The Ioniq 9 and Palisade share a broad family resemblance in their second- and third-row power seat hardware, though Hyundai has not said the two defects share the same root cause. What links them, in NHTSA’s paperwork, is the same failure mode described twice in one year: a seat that does not reliably sense a person in its path. The Palisade recall covered gasoline and hybrid three-row SUVs built years apart, while the Ioniq 9 campaign is narrower, limited to a single model year and three trim levels built inside a 14-month production window.

Neither recall has been tied to a design flaw shared across Hyundai’s wider power-seat supply chain, and the company has continued selling both vehicles with the feature intact rather than disabling powered folding while it investigates. Hyundai’s interim guidance, rather than a physical lockout, is what carries the weight of prevention until each vehicle actually receives its fix.

What owners should do now

Until the software update lands, Hyundai’s guidance is straightforward: keep children clear of the second row and its folding area whenever the seats are powering through a movement, and treat the area the same way a parent would treat a closing car door. Owners with questions can call Hyundai customer service, which has set up a dedicated line referencing the automaker’s internal campaign number, 307, for the recall.

Only 5,360 vehicles carry this particular campaign, a narrow slice of Hyundai’s lineup compared with the Palisade recall six months earlier. Whether the software fix eliminates the underlying sensing failure, or whether Hyundai faces a third seat-related campaign before the model year is out, is the open question the automaker’s engineers are now being asked to answer.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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