Kia electric cars will be even easier to charge thanks to this new practical function

Kia announces the arrival of Plug & Charge technology to its electric vehicles, starting with the new EV9. The latter should make the payment experience more intuitive for customers, while many manufacturers already offer it.

If charging your electric car was something to fear a few years ago, things have now changed. Already, because the number of stations has increased significantly over time, while France today has more than 100,000. But that’s not all.

A simplified experience

In fact, with the availability, The payment experience is also more pleasant than ever before as companies develop solutions to enable operations. For example by equipping their stations with bank card payment stations. Which will soon be mandatory everywhere in Europe. But there is a more practical alternative.

We think especially Plug & Charge, which is starting to grow well. This increasingly widespread technology makes it possible to start car payments without a driver need to identify yourself by passing a badge at the terminal. Which may seem small, but it saves a lot of time, while avoiding taking your card in the rain, for example.

The vehicle is recognized by the terminal and charging starts automatically as soon as the socket is plugged in. A practical system now adopted by more and more manufacturers, including Kia which recently lifted the curtain on its new EV9. The large electric SUV, which will compete with the Tesla Model X and the other Volvo EX90, will replace the flagship for the manufacturer.

It has many technologies such as level 2 autonomous driving and router, but it will soon improve its Input and Charging capabilities. A new feature announced by Kia in a communiqué published recently and which will be sent later all other structures with electricity in series. This will certainly be the case for the new EV6 and EV5.

More practical

This technology will be compatible with Ionity stations, which have already been equipped for several months and with which Kia is working. For reference, the manufacturer is part of a joint venture that created a network of fast charging stations, with Volkswagen as well as Mercedes and Ford. A Korean brand too offer this feature at BP stations. But rest assured, this service is completely safe.

It relies on an automatic digital certificate exchange process. between the car and the charging station » as the brand explains. This allows the vehicle to be identified by Create a link with a recharge contract associated with the customer account. If the press release doesn’t specify it, it’s likely that Kia uses the Open Plug&Charge Protocol (OPCP) developed by several companies including BMW, Daimler and Bosch.

The latter provides free access to this technology for brands that would like to integrate it into their vehicles. Currently, there are already many of them, including BMW of course, but also Tesla, which has been offering this function for several years, but only with its stations. This has also been the case more recently for Skoda and Cupra and Volkswagen.

Several payment terminal operators are also compatible with this technology. We are thinking of Ionity, of course, but also of Fastned which recently released its Autocharge.