Kia Charge hits one million charge point milestone in Europe
Kia has reached the milestone of offering a million charge points to motorists across Europe via its Kia Charge service.
Along with Kia connect, MyKia, the Kia Warranty Book, and the Kia Owner’s Manual, Kia Charge is part of the heavily-revised Kia app, which brings each service together into a single mobile device-based platform.
Kia Charge is designed to simplify life with an EV, and allows users to find charging points and plan journeys with charging points en route. It also provides motorists with the opportunity to track charging in real-time and access the bp pulse and the ultra-fast IONITY network – the latter of which returns speeds of up to 350kW.
Kia Charge’s Plug&Charge facility adopts a Tesla-style system, whereby any of the South Korean carmaker’s current EVs – the EV3, EV4, EV5, EV6, EV9, and PV5 – immediately start charging when plugged into a compatible charge point.
As long as the car is paired with the MyKia app, neither a charge card nor a charge point app for authentication is needed to start the charging session.
At the time of writing, Kia Charge is available in over 27 European countries, with over 55,000 of its million charge points in the UK alone. The service is available with either the free ‘Easy’ tariff or ‘Plus’ tariff, the latter of which gives users a 15% discount on charge points outside of bp plus and IONITY.
The Plus tariff also eliminates the need for having to pay a charging session fee at UK charge points.
After hitting a million chargers, Kia Europe president and CEO said: “Achieving one million charging points represents a significant milestone that underlines Kia’s commitment to providing our EV customers with a comprehensive ecosystem of public, residential, and depot charging solutions.
“This accomplishment highlights our contribution to advancing e-mobility and facilitating the shift toward more sustainable transportation solutions.”
Ionity seeks to expand its Europe-wide ultra-rapid charging network to 5,000 charge points across 13,000 stations by the end of 2030.
