[alexw]

Seems there's still some confusion about what V2L allows and how it works, so I did some quick tests. Here are the bullet points:

1. You cannot use the interior AC outlet while charging. I've just tested, extensively.
2. You cannot use the interior AC outlet if the charge door is merely open, even when nothing's plugged in to the charge port. I'm presuming this is a safety interlock, because the charge port becomes hot when the internal outlet is on and they don't want fingers or plugs getting near it.
3. The V2L AC is provided by the ICCU itself, NOT dedicated inverter hardware, so it stands to reason that you can't use that power path both for charging and for loading. I can personally think of architectures that WOULD enable it, but they verifiably have not done any sort of AC passthrough in this platform (which makes sense for a handful of reasons).
4. All of this comports with other published reviews, i.e. Bjorn's discovery that it doesn't work while charging below
5. The interior and exterior outlet, as they are directly connected together (2), share the same power rating. You can't pull more than 15 or 16A from the combination of them. No extra power for multiple appliances (tested with heaters).
6. Finally, for the nerds, the output IS pure-sine, albeit with a little bit of switching noise around the 0V crossing and at least some discernable stair-stepping that probably means some higher harmonics. For the super-nerds, AC output waveforms including FFT attached below.

A little more info going INSIDE the V2L connector, if you care: Inside the Hyundai/Kia V2L Connector

 

[alansh42]

Given that the interior and exterior V2L are connected, this also means you can't get 240v by using a Korean V2L. 120v is probably programmed into the ICCU for the US models.

 

[dohsma]

Great info... thanks for taking the time to do this!

 

[alexw]

Given that the interior and exterior V2L are connected, this also means you can't get 240v by using a Korean V2L. 120v is probably programmed into the ICCU for the US models.

That seems to be the case; this person bought one on ebay and it puts out 120V on his car: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ioniq5/comments/tyqvvn/_/i43t493
Also, I should have added this in the first post, but there's nothing inside the V2L adapter that could signal anything about expected voltage/frequency. I'm quite certain the ICCU can generate any old voltage between 120 and 240, certainly including 230, and probably at either 50 or 60Hz (or probably anything else in between). But what it does in practice is definitely preconfigured.

Inside the Hyundai/Kia V2L Connector

The new Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6, both based on the shared E-GMP platform, support a cool “new” feature called vehicle-to-load. I use quotes because it is and it isn’t – …

www.alexwhittemore.com

The fact that the two circuits are connected also worries me about how it might work for V2G/V2H. I'm guessing the USA-spec cars can't output 240V single-phase for use with an external autotransformer. It's possible they could do 120+120 split-phase, but it'd be a bit of a hack job to do that over the J1772 with only 3 pins.

 

[cu260r6]

Any real world wattage tests? I hear it's rated for 1900w but don't know anyone who has reached/exceeded that.

 

[alexw]

Any real world wattage tests? I hear it's rated for 1900w but don't know anyone who has reached/exceeded that.

I don’t have any programmable load that can go that high, much less on AC. My space heater that I tested this morning was pulling 1800 when it first turned on, so definitely that much. Adding a 500W hot air gun tripped the protection.

 

[Maxwell61]

Thanks to the OP for the very interesting infos.
Perhaps you can give me an opinion.

I would like to connect some Solar panel (230V plug) to the charging port.
This is because i spend often time camping (particularly in summer) & the solar recharge can make the V2L even more interesting if not indispensable in the countryside. Also i leave the car often parked outside in the sun.
Unfortunately i don't see sign on the horizon for an EV6 with the Ioniq 5 solar roof.

I thought it should be possible because you can recharge the EV6 from another EV (is it correct?), presumably with a low current as the one available from a solar panel, but i don't know exactly at which min Amps.
I know recharge inlet have some limitation on the minumum Amps that can receive, so is not so straightforward and with too low of a current could even not work at all. What's your findings/opinion about it?

It could be of interest for everybody that last summer in the north of Italy a youtuber tested the solar recharge on a Ioniq5. Result from 9ishAM to 4ishPM (then he got back home after work, test ended) was 3,5 kWh charged from the roof. Not bad at all.

 

[alansh42]

You'd just have to use a portable EVSE. Plug that into your power source, be it solar or another EV. The issue would be if your solar power could provide enough output.

 

[alexw]

Thanks to the OP for the very interesting infos.
Perhaps you can give me an opinion.

I would like to connect some Solar panel (230V plug) to the charging port.
This is because i spend often time camping (particularly in summer) & the solar recharge can make the V2L even more interesting if not indispensable in the countryside. Also i leave the car often parked outside in the sun.
Unfortunately i don't see sign on the horizon for an EV6 with the Ioniq 5 solar roof.

I thought it should be possible because you can recharge the EV6 from another EV (is it correct?), presumably with a low current as the one available from a solar panel, but i don't know exactly at which min Amps.
I know recharge inlet have some limitation on the minumum Amps that can receive, so is not so straightforward and with too low of a current could even not work at all. What's your findings/opinion about it?

It could be of interest for everybody that last summer in the north of Italy a youtuber tested the solar recharge on a Ioniq5. Result from 9ishAM to 4ishPM (then he got back home after work, test ended) was 3,5 kWh charged from the roof. Not bad at all.

There are two key considerations to solar charging through the J1772 port:
1. the car draws about 300W just to keep the electronics on while charging. For any solar generation less than 300W, you're losing energy rather than recharging.
2. The J1772 standard doesn't define any current below 6A (720W in the USA) in duty-cycle mode. 10% means 6A, and 3-9% means "switch over to digital communication". Assuming you built a box to support digital communication, I'm not sure if even that allows current below 6A.

In other words, the smallest solar array you can harvest from external to the car, interfaced by J1772, is 720W, and only at 58% efficiency because of the electronics. That's a very big array to kart around, and you'd have to make it even bigger still, because it has to make at least 720W all the way from 9am to 4pm (or whatever window you want to capture). That requires probably doubling it still.

What I'd ultimately like to build is some kind of "DC slow charging" EVSE that will allow interfacing directly with the battery pack, although that then requires a converter to boost the solar array voltage up to 800, which is certainly a somewhat scary design exercise. And it still doesn't circumvent the 300W wastage because the electronics will still always be on, unless Kia were to give us some kind of low power charging mode they have internally for the solar panel (which they won't, because that would be very silly).

Edit: forgot to say, I don't know how the constraints change for a Type 2 connector vs J1772, but you can imagine the picture looks pretty much the same even if you could throttle current all the way down to 3A. Efficiency with those electronics is still a killer.

 

[Maxwell61]

My message about the tested solar roof was ambigous. Just in case, i was talking of the factory Hyundai solar roof, that for the tested time, 9AM to 4PM, just because the guy had to come back home, produced 3,5 kWh in a quite northern location in Italy. It means a full summer day over there should produce at the least 4 kWh, i cannot image in Arizona...

The video have english subtitles:

As Alexw (thank you!) pointed out, it's very different harvesting whatever energy on a DC-DC internal factory system, than on an external setup @120 or 240V.
This is the same problem with home produced solar energy: in part of the world as EU where 240V is in use, if is confirmed (as i suspected) a minumum 6A, that means a minumum 1440W istantaneous power which is rather difficult to achieve even by a medium fixed home FV installation.

Correct is also the 250-300W of electronics consumption & the very low efficiency at low amperes as 6.
Nonetheless i see some Tesla should accept even less than 6A:

In any case, i see the case for a factory solar roof depending on the personal use, being a convenience item, more than a way to save money. A way to eliminate vampire drains, a way to enhance the use of V2L to run appliances, a way to increase the charge on isolated location stays, and more. I really hope Kia will follow Hyundai.

 

[ELUNO]

What happens if a device “trips a breaker”? What actually happens in the car? What is protecting it from this?

 

[alexw]

In any case, i see the case for a factory solar roof depending on the personal use, being a convenience item, more than a way to save money. A way to eliminate vampire drains, a way to enhance the use of V2L to run appliances, a way to increase the charge on isolated location stays, and more. I really hope Kia will follow Hyundai.

I stand firm in my conviction that the solar roof is a total gimmick, BUT as you point out, it's certainly still convenient. I used to work up in the mountains near Los Angeles and would park in a lot with absolutely beating, direct, hot sun all day long, and come out after work to a cabin so hot I had to roll the windows down remotely for a minute or two before I even got in to start it, then waited a bit longer still.

In that kind of scenario, I could imagine getting a lot of use out of the roof. The solid roof would reject heat better than panoramic glass, it would be best case scenario for harvesting, and the extra juice would be very welcome since that lot was far from home and never had available chargers. Plus, the biggest tradeoff in my head is that the solar roof basically requires leaving the car outside in the sun as much as possible, i.e. worst case for wear. But if you park in a scenario like that for work, you'd be doing it anyway.

If I still had that job and the option was available, I'd seriously consider a solar roof.

What happens if a device “trips a breaker”? What actually happens in the car? What is protecting it from this?

The ICCM has current sensing all over the place anyway for normal operation. If current on the V2L output exceeds 15A (or 16 in other countries), it just shuts off the outlet and gives you a warning on the gauge display that there was an overload. Totally digital breaker, no fuss or anything. I think if you just unplug and replug, you're good to go again, but I didn't try. Maybe you have to restart the car.

 

[Maxwell61]

I stand firm in my conviction that the solar roof is a total gimmick, BUT as you point out, it's certainly still convenient.

I do agree, it depends on very personal scenarios. When i analized some few personal use, i've found out quite a few very convenient and even economically sound situations. It is'nt so straightforward to juge the thing.

Particularly when your life brings you often far from home, garage & home chargers. And with Ionity EU fast chargers that could cost more than 1$ per kWh, it can even turn out rather economically sound.

As an example, with a Ioniq 5 i could do my monthly routine of 100 miles - 32 kWh one way (charging at home), parking outside for 1 (summer) or 2 weeks (winter), and come back for free rather than spend 40$ at the Ionity...

 

[ppheijnen]

Thanks to the OP for the very interesting infos.
Perhaps you can give me an opinion.

I would like to connect some Solar panel (230V plug) to the charging port.
This is because i spend often time camping (particularly in summer) & the solar recharge can make the V2L even more interesting if not indispensable in the countryside. Also i leave the car often parked outside in the sun.
Unfortunately i don't see sign on the horizon for an EV6 with the Ioniq 5 solar roof.

I thought it should be possible because you can recharge the EV6 from another EV (is it correct?), presumably with a low current as the one available from a solar panel, but i don't know exactly at which min Amps.
I know recharge inlet have some limitation on the minumum Amps that can receive, so is not so straightforward and with too low of a current could even not work at all. What's your findings/opinion about it?

It could be of interest for everybody that last summer in the north of Italy a youtuber tested the solar recharge on a Ioniq5. Result from 9ishAM to 4ishPM (then he got back home after work, test ended) was 3,5 kWh charged from the roof. Not bad at all.

Some home chargers can connect to network and the connect to solarpabels and adapt charging to current delivered by the panels. Evse can do this, also wallbox I believe…

no intelligence In the car but in the charger 🔌