Kia develops battery passport service for improved battery lifespan

Electromobility Kia Explores Battery Passport on Cell Level

2025-10-14 By Stefanie Eckardt | Translated by AI 3 min Reading Time

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Kia publicly explores and tests a battery passport on cell level. Furthermore, the company has founded its own organization to independently offer a battery passport service.

Kia and Hyundai are testing monitoring that collects detailed real-time data on the condition of each battery cell.(Image: Kia) — Kia and Hyundai are testing monitoring that collects detailed real-time data on the condition of each battery cell.
(Image: Kia)

A battery passport enables live monitoring of the battery's state of health (SoH), real-time repair diagnostics, and seamless traceability throughout the entire battery life cycle. This results in an overall longer battery lifespan, cost savings on maintenance, and increased confidence when buying or selling used electric vehicles.

To develop its own battery passport service, Kia has established an internal organization beyond preliminary research, bringing together employees from all areas of the company with partners across the entire battery value chain and related networks. The Korean brand’s battery passport will exceed legal requirements by including additional safety-relevant data, thereby ensuring a higher standard. Kia plans to offer this service for all electric and hybrid models sold in Europe by February 2027. The digital battery passport will become mandatory according to the EU Battery Regulation starting February 2027.

Pilot Environment for Shared Data Usage

For the test, a Kia EV 3 produced in Korea and equipped with a Dukosi battery cell monitoring system was delivered to Germany. The test vehicle is capable of collecting and transmitting live data for each battery cell and uploading it to its digital battery passport.

After the data upload, real-time information about the battery's state of health (SoH) can be accessed via the vehicle's infotainment system. To ensure accuracy and traceability throughout the entire battery lifecycle, the system is automatically updated after repair work. During the trial, a pilot environment for shared data usage, developed by the Dutch research and development organization TNO, was used to access the collected battery passport data.

The Kia EV4 is available to order starting at $40,200. (Image:Wehner - VCG)

Exploring Challenges

The battery passport test was coordinated by the Delft University of Technology together with Kia's sister company Hyundai. The system could also be configured for other applications, such as a different vehicle model, interoperability with another brand, or even an application in another sector.

The battery passport test is part of an EU-wide research collaboration aimed at testing and exploring the challenges and opportunities of implementing the EU battery passport in a real-world, multi-stakeholder context. To ensure secure data transmission between vehicle systems and stakeholders, the technical and backend integration of the battery passport was carried out by Hyundai Mobis and Hyundai.

Event on the Topic

What opportunities do battery cell production and battery module manufacturing offer for German and European companies? At the Battery Manufacturing Day, you can discuss this with expert speakers and participants from across the supply chain. You will receive an overview of the market, best-practice examples from automakers and suppliers, and information on equipment and systems for battery manufacturing, testing, quality assurance, networking, and digitization of battery production. How can you reduce waste in battery production? What expectations do automakers have of equipment manufacturers and suppliers? Find the answers at the Battery Manufacturing Day.

The project "Datapipe," in collaboration with ARN, the Dutch organization for producer responsibility in end-of-life vehicles and their batteries, examined the potential benefits of digital product passports in the future. The EU battery passport currently includes more than 100 data attributes.

Repair Individual Cells

Compared to conventional monitoring systems that only determine the condition of the entire battery or a battery module, Kia's research collects data for each individual cell and displays it. This data collection offers various benefits to customers. For instance, thanks to real-time battery condition data, maintenance issues can be detected and resolved early. This can extend battery life and reduce long-term costs.

The high precision of battery monitoring enables targeted, cell-specific repairs. This allows individual cells to be replaced instead of entire modules, saving both time and money. When selling the electric vehicle, owners benefit from the live battery condition data, which increases confidence in the vehicle's performance and can boost resale value. This transparency is also helpful for decisions regarding the reuse and recycling of batteries. It makes it easier to keep EV batteries in use for longer and reduce waste.

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