2024.03.25
Hyundai Motor to double E-pit fast chargers by 2025
By Moon Joon-hyun,
The Korea Herald - Hyundai Motor Group revealed on Sunday its plans to double
the number of its ultra-fast chargers for electric vehicles in South Korea to
500 by 2025.
As of March, the
group operates 286 E-pit EV chargers in 54 locations in Korea. This initiative
kicked off in April 2021, with a modest yet strategic deployment of 72 chargers
distributed over 12 key rest stops on highways. Achieving the 2025 target of 500
units would mean a 600 percent increase from 2021.
E-pit is Hyundai
Motor Group’s ultra-fast charging brand, located at highway rest stops and also
key urban locations. It boasts up to 350kW of power and supports a wide voltage
range, making it compatible with the group’s latest EV models. For example, it
can boost a Hyundai Ioniq 5 or a Kia EV9 from 10 to 80 percent battery in just
18 and 24 minutes, respectively.
Thanks to
round-the-clock monitoring to promptly address any malfunctions, Hyundai has
managed to halve the annual outage rate to 3 percent in one year from 2022 to
2023. Last year, the average E-pit charging session was recorded at 18.5
minutes.
It has also
partnered with the Korea Testing Certification Institute to establish the
Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Quality Certification Center. This
center ensures the safety, performance, and compatibility of EV charging
stations and awards the EV-Q certification mark to approved chargers.
Beyond the E-pit
initiative, Hyundai Motor Group is broadening its charging infrastructure by
installing 3,000 fast and 20,000 standard chargers across Korea in
collaboration with its affiliate Korea Electric Vehicle Charging Service.
Last December,
Hyundai also introduced the E-pit Pass, a service that allows Hyundai brand EV
owners to easily access and use charging stations operated by various providers
through a simple smartphone authentication, eliminating the need for multiple
memberships.
Currently, the E-pit
pass is compatible with 72,000 EV chargers across Korea, with plans to expand
to 260,000 units, covering 85 percent of all EV chargers in Korea, later this
year.
Korea has one of the
world's highest EV-to-charger ratios at 1.85. The government aims to expand the
national charger network to 1.2 million by 2030.
Source: https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240324050101