Hyundai has found an interesting way to promote the Ioniq 5’s Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) technology: powering a reindeer farm in Norway’s Arctic region.
Located in the remote and freezing wilderness outside of Tromsø, deep inside Norway’s Arctic Circle, the reindeer farm was powered for three days—but not continuously—by the Ioniq 5, which also supplied energy to an off-grid cabin for a cozy dinner.
All this was done using the Ioniq 5’s V2L function, which was put to the ultimate test in a region of the world that exists off the electrical grid. The Hyundai EV successfully completed the role of a portable power source despite challenges like restricted access to a reliable and clean source of energy and adverse weather conditions.
According to Hyundai, this demonstrates that people living in remote, off-grid areas can benefit from V2L, which gives them the ability to power and charge their electronic devices without generating emissions. Of course, this means the Ioniq 5’s battery has to be fully charged beforehand in a place that has access to electricity.
The automaker says this technology solution can effectively replace fuel-powered aggregates with the power from EV batteries.
If you’re unfamiliar with V2L, it describes a bi-directional power transfer in which the energy stored in an electric vehicle’s battery is transferred to an electric device. To offer this function, the software of the EV must support an onboard converter that converts direct current (DC) from the battery into alternating current (AC).
The Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 come with V2L capabilities as standard as the E-GMP architecture on which they’re based features an Integrated Charging Control Unit (ICCU) that allows electricity to flow both to and from the vehicle’s battery. Hyundai electric vehicles based on E-GMP can operate and charge other electric machinery (110/220 V), much like power banks on four wheels.
In the Ioniq 5, a 220-volt V2L outlet is located below the rear seats, while an additional external recharging outlet, which requires a specific adapter from Hyundai Mobis, can supply up to 3.6 kW of power. According to Hyundai‘s calculations, the Ioniq 5 could power the Tromsø Arctic Reindeer farm continuously for half a day—based on estimated consumption of 32.5 kWh per day for the farm, which runs on electricity for 13 hours a day.
