It is a story that has become familiar, with variations, to a significant number of Kia and Hyundai EV owners across the country are faced with charging problems (Auto Connected Car News reported on the issue first in the IONIQ 5 ) The culprit is a single electronic module, the Integrated Charging Control Unit — the ICCU — a component that manages the flow of energy between the high-voltage drive battery, the 12-volt auxiliary system, and the outside world when the car is plugged in. When it works, owners never think about it. When it doesn’t, their cars become, in the vernacular of owner forums, very expensive bricks. A Platform Problem The EV6, Kia’s award-winning electric crossover, and the EV9, its three-row electric flagship, both ride on the E-GMP architecture — the dedicated electric platform that Hyundai Motor Group developed to compete with Tesla and Volkswagen in the global EV market. It is, by most engineering assessments, a technically ambitious piece of work: 800-volt charging capability, wide-body proportions, and genuine range and performance credentials. But the E-GMP platform also brought the ICCU, and the ICCU, it has emerged, has a vulnerability. The unit can become damaged over time from transient high voltage and thermal cycling. A damaged ICCU may not be able to charge the 12-volt battery, which can discharge gradually while the car is being driven, causing progressive reductions in power. If the driver ignores warnings associated with the condition and continues driving in reduced-power mode, the vehicle can eventually experience a complete loss of drive power. A complete loss of drive power, as federal regulators note tersely in recall documents, increases the risk of a crash. In April 2024, Kia America initiated a safety recall covering all 2022–2023 model-year EV6 vehicles and certain 2024 models manufactured through February