Kia America recently announced a partnership with mobile electric vehicle charging service, Currently, to provide two months of complimentary service to Kia EV owners. Currently provides EV owners with an on-demand concierge charging service, allowing them to charge their EVs when and where they want.
The Kia partnership officially began on March 1, 2022, and access to schedule charging is now available through the Currently app. As of today, Currently only operates in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, and Dallas, but plans to expand to more markets before the end of 2022.
We couldn't be happier to partner with Kia to give EV drivers the convenience of mobile EV charge delivery; said Josh Aviv, CEO/Founder of SparkCharge, the parent company of Currently. We created Currently to make EV ownership convenient and accessible. Now that all Kia EVs will receive EV charging delivered wherever and whenever they want, we know that any concerns about EV ownership will simply disappear.
Once the free two-month period is up, owners can decide if they would like to continue the service for $25 per month. That allows users to have up to 3 charges per week which will add approximately 50 miles of range per visit. We're told that more pricing plans will be introduced soon.
Drivers schedule the time and location for their EV to be charged through the Currently app on their smartphone. Once that is completed, a Currently technician will arrive at the site and deliver a charge to the vehicle.
Currently was created by SparkCharge, creators of the portable Roadie Charging System that we've used to recharge a few Tesla vehicles that ran out of charge before making their destination. The Roadie system can be used to create a mobile charging network that provides EV battery recharging for apartment dwellers and others that do not have home charging availability.
The relationship with our customers does not end after delivery. In fact, that is just the beginning; Greg Silvestri, Kia's Vice President of Service Operations, said. Partnering with Currently to offer complimentary EV charging connects to our larger "Plan S" strategy and amplifies our commitment to overall EV adoption. We believe that making charging easy also makes EV ownership easy.
The Roadie system provides DC charging capability and can deliver up to 20kW to the vehicle, depending on the number of modules connected and the pack voltage. The modular system can employ up to four battery modules that each have the capacity to hold 3.7 kWh (3.5 kWh usable) The charging unit then connects to the top of the battery module(s). A four-battery system can deliver a total of up to 14 kWh.
The Roadie system is available with either a CCS1 or CHAdeMO connector and when charging at the full rate, is capable of adding nearly a mile a minute to the EV.
Kia's latest EV, the EV6 also comes with 1,000 kWh of complimentary charging on the Electrify America charging network. The partnership with Currently will now bring the charging station to Kia EV owners as long as they live or work in one of Currently's service territories.
