Today was supposed to be the day that Kia owners gain access to Tesla’s Supercharger network, but on Monday the brand announced that access would be delayed until spring. However, some owners have figured out a way to charge on Superchargers already.
It’s been a busy time for the North American EV industry’s transition to NACS, the charging standard originally advanced by Tesla and now standardized by SAE.
We’ve seen several brands added to the “coming soon” list, and even beyond that, VW and Honda have both made their own announcements that access is coming soon.
But the week was supposed to be even busier, with Kia having previously planned to roll out Supercharger access today, January 15th, according to an announcement the company made back in September. Unfortunately there was a delay, and Kia owners will have to wait another several weeks for official support.
But the wait might not be that long for all owners, if you’re willing to do something unsanctioned to get a charge.
Kia and Hyundai EVs are built on the same E-GMP platform, which is renowned for its DC charging prowess. And these brands were the first non-Tesla brands to ship cars with a native NACS port, instead of having to use an adapter.
Currently, we’ve heard plenty of reports that Hyundai EVs are charging on Tesla’s network no problem, despite that brand only just being added to Tesla’s “coming soon” page this week. And this apparently applies to Kia as well in certain instances, with a little trickery.
One Kia EV6 owner, who goes by Technically Jeff on Youtube, posted a video of himself charging his EV6 on a Tesla Supercharger today, the day that Kia was originally supposed to get access.
He doesn’t have a 2025 EV6 with native NACS port, and instead used a third party adapter from A2Z. This is not the official Kia-sanctioned adapter, as the official Kia adapter is not out yet. Manufacturers typically recommend that you use an official adapter, instead of a third party one.
In order to get the Supercharger to recognize his vehicle, he opened the Tesla app and listed his vehicle as an Ioniq 5, rather than an EV6. We’ve heard of other owners trying the same with Honda Prologues, listing them as Chevy Blazers (again, due to the car’s shared underpinnings) and being able to charge.
He preconditioned the battery by tricking his car into thinking he was going to another nearby CCS DC charger, so the battery was only partially conditioned and thus early fast charging speed wasn’t optimal.
Further, because he charged at a Tesla V3 cabinet, which isn’t capable of 800V, the EV6’s 800V charging system was limited. So he ended up peaking at around 100kW, which is roughly half of the best performance these cars can handle. Until Tesla rolls out more V4 cabinets, 800V vehicles can expect slower charging performance on Superchargers, even after gaining access.
The change allowing this seems to have been recent as well. Other owners have tried recently to charge Kias using the same method with no luck. But now we’re seeing this report that it is possible today, if you have a third-party adapter and don’t mind telling a little lie to Tesla.
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