Korean auto manufacturer Kia opened access to pre-orders in October for its newest all-electric vehicle, a three-row SUV called the EV9. The EV9 will compete in the hot family-vehicle segment and includes up to 304 miles of range with the single-motor setup (up to 280 miles with two motors) and towing capacity of up to 5,000 pounds.
But the most interesting feature of the EV9 isn’t how fast it charges or how many passengers it can carry; it’s the vehicle’s ability to conduct bidirectional charging from the SUV to your home and back around in a neat circular energy cycle. Now that an agreement with Wallbox (an EV charging and energy management solutions company) is in place, Kia is even poised to deliver energy back to the community grid through the EV9.
Here’s how the automaker is sharing energy between cars and homes.
Energy management throughout the cycle
Earlier in 2023, Kia sibling Hyundai unveiled its Ioniq 6 EV with a playful ducktail spoiler on the rear. It was also launched with the ability to charge up in about 18 minutes and provides a vehicle-to-load (V2L) energy exchange to charge and operate electric devices. Think coffee machines, a hair dryer, or charging up a portable lantern on a camping trip, or plugging in a laptop while at a work site.
On the scale of vehicle-to-X charging, V2L is just the starting point. The public is looking for more options, including V2H (vehicle-to-home), V2G (vehicle-to-grid), and V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle). The Wallbox partnership comprises its next-gen bidirectional charger. The company says that a Kia EV9 can hold between 76 and 100 kilowatt hours of energy, which is more than five times the energy of a standard home storage system. That’s enough to power up the average home for up to four days.
In case of a power outage, the bidirectional charger automatically switches the user’s power source from the grid to their vehicle to allow a homeowner to use their EV battery as an…
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