Kia runs cell-level battery passport trial in Europe
Kia is developing its own battery passport service. Beyond publicly testing a battery passport at the cell level as part of preliminary research, the South Korean carmaker says it has established an internal organisation that brings experts together from all areas of the company with partners from across the battery value chain and related networks.
Kia says its battery passport “will go beyond legal requirements by including additional safety-related data.” Kia plans to offer this service for all fully electric and hybrid electric models sold in Europe by February 2027.
The European Union adopted a new regulation on battery market regulation in August 2023. From 2027, a functioning digital battery passport will be mandatory in the EU. Key points of the document are a mandatory declaration and labelling, including information about battery components and the proportion of recycled materials, as well as the aforementioned electronic ‘battery passport’ and a QR code.
A battery passport enables live State of Health (SoH) tracking, real-time repair diagnostics, and end-to-end traceability across the battery’s lifecycle. For EV drivers, this leads to benefits such as extended battery life, more affordable maintenance, and a higher level of trust when buying or selling used EVs. In order to give European member states and economic operators in the market enough time to prepare, the labelling requirements will apply from 2026 and the passport and QR code from 2027.
“Kia aims to set a new standard for customers regarding battery transparency and performance,” said Marc Hedrich, President and CEO at Kia Europe. “Through testing cell-level battery passports, we gain insights on what ownership benefits we can offer our customers. On top of advantages such as extended battery life, we will be building on a relationship of trust as well.”
Kia’s battery passport trials have involved a Kia EV3 equipped with a Dukosi battery cell monitoring system that was shipped to Europe from S. Korea. The vehicle can monitor and transmit live data for each cell in the battery pack, which is uploaded to the battery’s digital passport.
The uploaded data provides real-time information for users, mechanics, and regulators, among others, on the battery’s SoC, which becomes available through the car’s infotainment system. The system automatically updates after repair work to ensure accuracy and traceability throughout the battery’s lifecycle in the vehicle.
Other parties involved in the trial were able to access the battery passport data through a data-sharing pilot environment by the Dutch independent research organisation, TNO. The collaborative trial was coordinated by Delft University of Technology and Hyundai Motor Group. Kia says the system used could also be configured for different models, or interoperability with a different brand and possibly even applications in other sectors.
The trial, concentrating on the cell level, focused on enabling targeted cell-specific repairs, allowing individual cells to be replaced instead of the whole module. Kia sees this development being beneficial to owners of used EVs, whose access to live battery data should increase trust in vehicle performance, which they say should, in turn, support higher resale values.
Once batteries no longer have the high battery performance required for electric cars (or trucks and buses), they can be used in second-life applications, which include stationary storage and light electric vehicles, or go directly to recycling. The digital battery passport enables monitoring for optimal usage and decision making at every stage, from battery production to use in a first application, reuse in second-life applications and recycling of the battery, also noting when recycled material has been used in new batteries, monitoring the sustainability of critical raw materials.
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