It’s happened twice now – the boot / trunk light has flattened the 12v battery of my Hyundai Kona Electric. The first time it happened was overnight when the boot door wasn’t quite closed properly. The second time was in France in blistering heat when we were trying to get an EV fast charger to work and we had the two front doors and boot open for a prolonged period.
With a flat 12v battery the car won’t do anything let alone start. Highly inconvenient!
I did some research online and this an issue with the Kona. The bulb seems to be a standard filament bulb and it runs very hot and comes on day or night. On the basis that the convenience of having a light come on when you open the boot is far outweighed by the inconvenience of it flattening the 12v battery, I decided to do away with it. Initially I thought I’d take out the bulb but this is fiddly and then you have the problem of what to do with the bulb. In the end I just decided to unplug the whole bulb module. The module pops out quite easily if you insert a small screw driver in the notch at the top.
With the module out, you can just unplug it.
Once unplugged you can refit the module. In theory, should I need a light in my boot, I could easily pop out the module and reconnect it. I can’t see myself ever doing this though.