Hyundai announced on Friday that it’s ordering dealers to stop selling certain trims of its three-row 2026 Palisade after an issue with the second- and third-row power seats, which can fold up and down automatically using buttons in the trunk area, killed a two-year-old girl.
In a press release, Hyundai says the incident, which occurred on March 7, is still under investigation but did not provide any additional details. The company is reaching out to owners to exercise caution while operating the second- and third-row power seats, and plans to issue a recall in the near future for affected models.
While it’s not entirely clear what happened, complaints from owners to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicate that the second- and third-row seats may not detect whether a passenger is present and may fold when commanded, pinning the passenger and potentially causing injury.
People Have Been Voicing Their Concerns
The second- and third-row power seats are available on the Palisade’s two most expensive trims, the Limited and Calligraphy. Those are the models Hyundai is telling dealers to stop selling as of Friday. This video shows how they work, with a panel on the left side of the trunk area:
Here’s how the company describes the fault:
In certain situations, those seats may not adequately detect contact with an occupant or object as intended. This condition may occur during second and third-row power‑folding operations, as well as during use of the second-row one‑touch tilt‑and‑slide function.
Hyundai is telling current owners to be careful about using the second- and third-row power seat functions “to ensure that no person or object, including children, is in the seat or seat-folding area before operating the power seat.”
That’s not great, obviously. It’s reasonable to expect a car to know there’s someone or something in a seat and reject a command from the controls, or at least sense whether there’s an unusual resistance from the seat when folding to stop and retract itself.
According to the NHTSA, there have been at least three complaints submitted on the 2026 Palisade referencing this exact issue, going back to November 2025. The earliest came from a dealer in Ohio, who discovered the problem and even tested it on themselves:
The 2nd row powered seats do not (or the system failed) have a force feedback sensor or anyway to tell if something or someone is in the way from it moving the seat back. If someone is climbing into the 3rd row seat and the button to move a 2nd row seat is pressed the person can be crushed, potentially pinning them in place and or choking their neck. The incident happened at a dealership with a at the time unsold car that had just arrived. I was personally able to reproduce the problem by pressing the button on the seat that moves it back into place while I was sitting behind it, the seat attempted to recline back pinning me in place till I pressed the button again.
The next complaint, which came in December 2025 out of Washington, voiced similar concerns and even noted the dangers the potential fault can pose to children:
Power folding seats do not stop when met with an obstruction. Occupant exiting the 3rd row of the vehicle was squished between the 2nd row seat and door frame of vehicle while trying to exit and it was very painful. When tested at the dealership, they confirmed that, even if excessive force is applied to the seat back while it’s folding or sliding, it will not stop folding or sliding, which could cause physical injury. Dealership stated that there is no sensor to stop the seats from folding, even if there is an obstruction in the way and that you must press the button again to stop it. This is a safety concern for any passengers on the 2nd and 3rd rows, especially children.
The final complaint, which came at the end of December, describes a particularly scary incident that involved someone actually getting pinned by one of the seats:
A passenger got into the passenger side middle row seat and the seat fold up button was accidentally bumped while the person was trying to get situated and buckled. The seat began moving and folding forward, pinning the passenger between the seat they were in and the back of the front seat. This incident hurt the passenger who had the force of the seat against her and it frightened her very badly. If the door had been locked, the passenger would not have been able to be helped out and could have sustained worse injuries. I have not had the dealer look at this yet as we live almost 3 hours away from the nearest one.
While it’s not clear if there are physical sensors in the rear seats for detecting occupancy, the Palisade (as well as many other Hyundais) uses a system called Rear Occupant Alert to monitor whether there are people or pets present in the car. The system uses ultrasonic sensors in the headliner and works even when the car is shut off and locked. When it was launched back in 2017, it was marketed as a way to prevent people from forgetting children or animals in hot cars, not to detect whether there were people in seats for folding purposes. I’ve reached out to Hyundai to clarify.
There’s A Recall Coming Real Soon
Obviously, these cars shouldn’t be left the way they are, so Hyundai says it’s in the process of submitting a recall to the NHTSA. The recall, which is “currently under development,” will affect around 68,500 cars, according to the company.
As a stopgap, Hyundai says it’s going to release an over-the-air software update to “enhance the system’s response to contact with occupants or objects, introduce additional operating safeguards, and enhance overall system safety.”
It’s not clear right now when the permanent fix will become available—I’ve reached out to Hyundai about that, too. In the meantime, just make sure you double-check your kids are out of the car before pressing any buttons in the trunk.
Top graphic image: Hyundai
Reminds me of the time I had a friend’s large dog Keystone jump in my lap in the back seat of his 5-gen Cutlass Supreme. Keystone’s paw mashed on the window up button, smushing Keystone’s head in the window as it rolled up, it started yelping in pain and I couldn’t reach the button because it had a large dog on top of it.
Goddammit, Keystone.
Garage doors and elevator doors have had the ability to detect resistance and reverse themselves before exerting a dangerous level of pressure for decades. To send a vehicle to market without that very simple and cheap safety feature on folding seats is inexcusable.
I wonder if this flaw is present in the Ioniq 9, which shares a lot of features with its less efficient, slower hybrid brethren, including a power folding third row in some trims.
What a horrifying and senseless tragedy, that was probably entirely predictable and cheap and easy to prevent during the original design process. Those parents are never going to be able to get that pain out of their minds, and, frankly, any engineers at Hyundai-Kia who might have considered a possibility like this should be in the same boat of having to live with this knowledge
It’s not the engineers who should live with it, I guarantee you, it’s the accountants that deemed it unnecessary. Frankly an engineer who thought of the possibility _did their job_.
I guess it depends. Did the raise a concern over the issue? If they did, did they call the current design sufficient?
Or did they grudgingly agree to call it sufficient after getting hammered about it in 8 Teams meetings and having someone else’s boss pressure their boss
There’s the Order of the Engineer (that isn’t super popular) that would probably say that still isn’t enough, if they thought it was safety critical.
How strong they making those motors? It only has to fold down a 5lb seatback!
I had power folding 3rd row seats in my formerly owned 95 Navigator, and I seem to remember you had to hold the button down in order to move the seats, it’s wasn’t press and forget. Release the button and the seat stops moving. Seems like a pretty simple solution.