Kia owners have once again found that they are able to charge on Tesla Superchargers, after Hyundai was officially allowed on the network this morning.
There’s been quite a little back and forth in the transition to NACS for Kia vehicles over the last couple months.
Currently, basically every electric car brand is moving to using the NACS standard for charging in North America, and along with this, is expected to gain access to Tesla’s Supercharger network, the largest and highest-rated EV fast charging network.
Back in September, Kia said that it planned to gain access to the Supercharger network in January. Then when January came around, Tesla added several brands to its “coming soon” page for Supercharger access, including Kia. But immediately after this, Kia said its access would be delayed until “spring.”
But at the time, we heard plenty of reports that Hyundai’s native NACS vehicles were charging just fine on Tesla Superchargers – and even faster than Teslas were.
Due to the similarity between Kia and Hyundai’s vehicles, since they are both built on the E-GMP platform and thus share powertrain and charging components, Kia owners found a loophole that allowed them to charge if they told Superchargers they had a Hyundai Ioniq, instead of a Kia. But that loophole only lasted a week.
Kia since started sending out NACS adapters, but we were still waiting to hear about Supercharger access.
However, now, it seems a similar loophole is back. This morning, Hyundai officially got access to Tesla’s network as the brand started shipping NACS adapters to owners. It also got moved into the “supported” section from the “coming soon” section on Tesla’s website.
So, naturally, Kia owners went out to give it another try, to see if they can charge on Superchargers… and as of today, it works again.
The process seems to be simple enough. Unlike last time, you don’t need to spoof your vehicle as a Hyundai, merely use the Tesla app like any other car would and the charge should start normally.
You’ll still need an adapter, whether it be the official Kia adapter or a third-party adapter. Or you’ll need a 2025 Kia EV6 with native NACS port, but they haven’t started shipping yet.
Given Kia had said access was coming “on the back half of this quarter,” and the quarter is over in a few days, it does seem like an official announcement ought to be coming soon.
We reached out to Kia for comment on this news, and we’ll update if we find anything out. But until then, happy Supercharging.
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