Hyundai and Kia in connectivity race

The fierce family rivalry between Hyundai and Kia in Australia has entered a new arena – connectivity.

Both Hyundai Motor Group brands have debuted their telematics systems and related smartphone apps in recent months and next comes the race to roll out the technology range-wide and the introduction of new features such as over-the-air (OTA) updates.

But while Kia has already confirmed OTA will allow owners to buy new features such as more power and performance for their electric vehicles, Hyundai says it’s unconvinced that add-on charges are a good idea.

Connectivity and how to exploit is the latest battleground for the two brands in Australia, which are these days trading blows in the top five of the sales ladder.

Kia Connect was introduced with the Niro compact electric crossover in July while Hyundai launched Bluelink in Australia with the updated Palisade large SUV in August.

Despite their different names the two systems come from the same HMG base technology and have similar suites of features to potentially introduce.

Hyundai is forecasting all eligible models in its range – essentially everything with satellite-navigation – will have Bluelink by the end of 2023.

Kia’s timeline appears very similar, forecasting all its eligible models will have Kia Connect by 2024.

The upgrade timeline is close as well. Phase two of both Bluelink and Kia Connect will include OTA and feature-on-demand capability.

Hyundai says that will be introduced during the second quarter of 2023, while Kia is estimating mid-2023.

OTA brings with it the capability to perform updates, upgrades and service campaigns without having to take the vehicle to a dealership.

But it’s the OTA software tweaks that deliver performance boosts including more kiloWatts and the quicker 0-100km/h times for EVs that create the headlines and generate extra income for car companies.

EV specialists Tesla and Polestar already offer OTA performance upgrades.

Polestar recently offered a $1600 upgrade for the Polestar 2 Long Range Dual Motor that added 50kW and 20Nm, cut the 0-100km/h dash time from 4.7 to 4.4 seconds and boosted mid-range acceleration.

Kia product chief Roland Rivero told carsales in July that Kia would be offering something similar for its EVs.

“I don’t want to give too much away but you may be able to buy a bit more performance,” he said.

“You may say, ‘I want to go from a certain figure 0-100km/h to an even quicker figure 0-100km/h’ and that could be something you could purchase.

“That’s the kind of example where it [Kia Connect] starts to get really cool.” 

But Hyundai Australia product chief Andrew Tuitahi said offering an EV performance boost was not high on its priority list for the next phase of Bluelink.

Currently Hyundai sells the Kona Electric and IONIQ 5 in Australia and will soon launch the IONIQ 6, IONIQ 7 and the IONIQ 5 N. 

“I keep hearing you say performance – an extra 50kW, 0.5 seconds quicker – but they are not items one, two and three on the list of what we are studying,” said Tuitahi.

“They are a consideration, but we are thinking of other things.”

Hyundai is conducting an internal study to figure out how it should best exploit Bluelink’s upcoming OTA and feature-on-demand capability.

But Tuitahi sounded unconvinced that charging owners ongoing fees to add features to their cars was a great idea.

“There is a very long list of things that you could potentially utilise feature-on-demand for,” Tuitahi said.

“We’re not really in a position to talk through what we will do because we are genuinely not sure.

“Everything is on the table, but realistically I think we have to genuinely consider the buying proposition. If you’ve already paid for hardware is it fair or reasonable to expect people to pay a monthly fee to access the hardware that’s already in the car?

“We are studying this, we are exploring this, we are looking at things that are just straight-up software updates and upgrades and I think we should have our market study completed before the end of this year.”

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