Kia Motors UK has teamed up with both BP Chargemaster and Pod Point to offer electric car drivers preferential terms for the provision of a home charge point. Kia says home charging would cost less than £3 depending on tariffs.

Kia is rumoured to be planning to offer the new generation of its compact SUV Sportage not only as all different kinds of hybrid but also as a purely electric version. What casts some doubt over the rumour are earlier statements by a senior Kia manager.

The Hyundai Motor Group’s entry into the Ionity fast-charging network is now official. The Korean company through its Hyundai and Kia brands holds a 20 per cent stake in the Europe-wide high power charging network founded by BMW, Ford, Daimler and Volkswagen.

Based on their sales figures for the first half of 2020, the PSA Group, Volvo, FCA and the BMW Group already meet the EU targets for average CO2 emissions from new cars, as shown by an analysis by Transport & Environment.

The European offices of Hyundai and Kia, together with Digital Charging Solutions (DCS) are launching a new charging service for electric car drivers under the labels Charge myHyundai and KiaCharge. The service will be rolled out across various markets in Europe.

Kia has published an update on its electrification strategy that builds on the ‘Plan S’ presented in January. The Korean company presented the first sketch of the electric sedan scheduled for launch in 2021.

Hyundai Motor Group and SK Innovation have agreed to work together to develop a sustainable ecosystem for electric vehicle batteries. The cooperation of the South Korean companies will include various business areas not directly related to cell manufacturing.

Kia presents the Sorento plug-in hybrid set for launch in select European markets in early 2021. The Sorento is the brand’s first SUV riding on the platform, that forms the new technical basis for the firm’s electrification strategy.

In the UK, Kia has increased the supply of its e-Niro and Soul EV electric crossovers to meet “intense demand” and shorten waiting times. After the Korean brand offered new cheaper e-Niro options at the end of June, Kia said that July was its best month on record according to UK sales.

The Kia Soul has been taken off Kia websites and lists in the USA. It seems that the South Korean company will not be bringing the electric car to the USA as originally planned.

Kia is now offering the e-Niro in the UK with the 39 kWh battery and 100 kW drive, in addition to the 64 kWh and 150 kW versions available to date. More so, this means UK customers can now get a Kia electric car for less than £30,000.

In the USA, J.D.Power’s 2020 Initial Quality Study looked at Tesla for the first time this year. Tesla earned the worst score among the 32 major vehicle brands, but German premium brands did not look much better.

Hyundai, Kia and LG Chem have launched a start-up competition to identify promising newcomers in the field of e-mobility. The ‘EV & Battery Challenge’ calls domestic and foreign start-ups developing technologies and business models for EVs and batteries.

In 2014, Hyundai-Kia installed the first heat pump in the Kia Soul EV. Since then, the Korean companies have continued to develop the technology – in a new article, they provide some insights into the development.

Kia is examining plans to build a purely electric miniature car in the style of the Citroën Ami. Although the South Korean company has not revealed a timetable for these plans, it seems that Kia is already considering a new distribution model for the electric microcar.

According to a British media report, the Prophecy electric concept vehicle recently presented by Hyundai will go into series production and is to replace the Ioniq. The new electric limousine could come onto the market by 2021.

Electrify America announces agreement with Kia Motors America to offer ‘Kia Select,’ a new charging programme with optimised pricing for the all-electric Kia Niro on the DC fast-charging network of the VW subsidiary.

Any claimed range or specified maximum charging power must be treated with caution when wanting to know how fast you’ll really progress on longer journeys with one or more charging stops.

Following a successful ‘try before you buy‘ loan scheme for electric vehicles in Nottingham, DriveElectric the offer could “act as a blueprint for cities across the UK”.

Kia will be initially concentrating on getting its electric models to Europe before attempting to satisfy demand in the USA due to limited availability of batteries. The awkward situation for the popular carmaker was revealed in an interview with a top Kia manager in the USA.

Kia presented the new generation of the SUV Sorento this March. Kia has announced the new platform and powertrains and has published a little information about the hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions.

The US American electric vehicle startup and the South Korean automotive giant have teamed up in an engineering partnership to develop electric vehicles. Canoo and Hyundai will co-develop an electric vehicle platform based on Canoo’s skateboard technology to be used for upcoming Hyundai and Kia EVs and PBVs (Purpose Built Vehicles).

Hyundai and Kia are investing 100 million euros in the British electric vehicle developer Arrival. The Korean manufacturers want to use Arrival’s platform to develop electric commercial vehicles for various applications such as logistics or ride hailing and shuttle service companies.

Kia UK has now opened the order books for the plug-in hybrid versions of the XCeed and Ceed Sportswagon. The XCeed PHEV will start from £30,695, the Ceed Sportswagon PHEV from £29,995 and deliveries are scheduled to start in April.

As part of its now presented ‘Plan S’ strategy, Kia has announced eleven all-electric models up to the year 2025. By then, 25 per cent of sales will be accounted for by “environmentally friendly vehicles”. The first fully electric model is to be launched in 2021.

SK Innovation will become the exclusive battery cell supplier for Hyundai Group electric cars – specifically for the first model based on the Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP), which is to roll off the assembly line from 2021.

According to a Kia blog, Kia is planning a purely electric version of its Seltos compact SUV exclusively for the Asian markets. The electric Seltos, which will be developed under the code name SP2 EV, will be based on well-known technology.

Hyundai presented its Lafesta EV for the Chinese market at the Guangzhou Motor Show. While their subsidiary Kia also presented an electric limousine with the K3 EV, which will also be offered with similar performance data as the Lafesta EV.

In the USA this week Kia confirmed that its fully-electric Soul EV has been delayed and will not make the 2020 model year but will first hit markets in 2021.

By the year 2030, every third new car in South Korea is to be battery-powered or running on hydrogen. The government has now officially issued this target. Politicians also believe that companies must facilitate this too.