Kia’s Supercharger Access Delayed by Weeks or Months
Hot on the heels of Kia being added to Tesla’s “coming soon” page for Supercharger access, we’re now learning that Supercharger support won’t actually come nearly as soon as expected for Kia – with a delay of weeks or months before Kia owners can plug in at North America’s largest fast charging network.
Earlier today, Kia and several other brands were added to Tesla’s coming soon page, suggesting that access could be imminent. This squared with a previous September announcement that access would come in January – with a planned date of January 15, just two days away from now. But today, PC Magazine reported that Kia’s access will be delayed to sometime in Spring.
Specifically, Kia has updated a press release on its website which previously stated a launch date of January 15. The press release now says “Access to the DC fast chargers is planned for the first quarter of 2025.” That means it could be any time in the next three months, assuming there are no further delays.
PC Magazine quoted James Bell, Kia’s head of PR, as stating that “a delay has occurred and we are working with the appropriate teams to confirm new availability/date.” It’s unclear whether this delay will affect other brands, like Hyundai and Genesis.
Kia and Hyundai share a platform for their electric vehicles, and have been the first to offer vehicles with native NACS ports on 2025 models, as opposed to using adapters like all other brands have so far. Older Kia/Hyundai vehicles without a native NACS port will still be able to use an adapter once cars gain access to the network.
In 2022, Tesla announced it would open its charging network, lured by big money promised in President Biden’s federal EV charging grants. For a while it seemed like a bit of a hail mary, as many thought that most of the industry was already committed to the SAE CCS standard for fast charging.
But then, in 2023, Ford announced it would adopt Tesla’s “NACS” connector, and all the dominos started to fall. Soon enough, basically the entire industry had announced a shift to Tesla’s charging standard.
But these things take time, and the industry had to work on redesigning vehicles, building adapters, organizing software handshakes, and building out an official standard. Now, several brands can already use Superchargers, with more to come.
The rollout seemed to be slowing down for a time, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk abruptly fired the entire Supercharging team which had been responsible for successfully executing this coup that could see Tesla gaining a lasting lead in EV charging. Earlier today, when so many brands were added to the “coming soon” page, it seemed like perhaps the dust had settled on the chaotic charging situation caused by Musk’s instability. But perhaps this Kia news is indication that there’s still some trouble that needs to be worked through.
