Hyundai and Kia announce that they have invested in the Ionity joint venture. The idea for Kia and Hyundai is to offer their customers access to the ultra-fast terminals of the Ionity project, which continues to expand in Europe. The vehicles of two brands will also be updated in 2021.
Currently, electric models from Kia and Hyundai do not accept more than 77 kW of charging power. But that will quickly change: Hyundai Motors has confirmed the signing of an agreement for an investment in Ionity, the joint venture founded by BMW, Ford, Mercedes, Porsche and Volkswagen Group.
Kia and Hyundai electric vehicles will therefore have very quick access to one of the 400 Ionity charging stations in Europe, which, as we have said, allows for up to 350 kW of charging power.
The battery models of the two Korean brands will be updated in 2021. At that date, customers will therefore be able to connect to the Ionity terminals in Europe without any power limit.
At present, Ionity remains behind on its initial planning, which provided for the installation of 400 terminals before 2020. For the moment, we are only at 140 terminals throughout Europe, with 50 others in construction. For comparison, Tesla has 1,600 Superchargers stations with more than 14,000 charging stations in Europe in 2019.
