Customers will be able to apply for the charging service for free regardless of remaining battery life. (image: Kia Motors)
SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Kia Motors Corp., South Korea’s second-biggest carmaker by sales, plans to launch a new on-demand electric vehicle (EV) charging service that enables customers to have their EVs charged without limits in time and space.
On Monday, Kia inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with battery diagnosis solution start-up MinTech Co. to provide the on-demand charging service.
Without the need to go to a charging station, customers can select a time and place through Kia Motors’ mobile application page. Kia’s service vehicles would then visit the selected location on time to offer an on-demand charging service.
The main objective of the MOU is to ease the charging burden for EV users.
Customers will be able to apply for the charging service for free regardless of remaining battery life. With this service, they should be able to charge their EVs up to 40 kilowatt hours, which is enough to drive the car up to 240 kilometers.
Another feature of this service is the recycling of old EV batteries as charging batteries that are embedded in the service vehicles.
Kia will establish the charging system of the service vehicles by renovating its Kia Bongo EV truck in collaboration with moveable charger start-up EVAR.
The carmaker said that by recycling the batteries of the existing Niro EV for the charging system, it would contribute to creating environment-friendly energy ecosystem.
In collaboration with MinTech, Kia completed the verification of safety and efficiency for the recycled batteries.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
