With the launch of the Kia EV9 in June 2023, Hyundai Motor Group opened the era of the SDV (Software Defined Vehicle, a car that evolves around software) in earnest. It marked the starting point of a newly redefined mobility industry paradigm, and the launch of the “Kia Connect Store” was an important first step.

Case Intelligence Summary

Pain Points

Buying and selling car features as software was a service new to everyone.

SDV (Software Defined Vehicle) is central to Hyundai Motor Group's shift into a smart mobility solutions company, and the door opened with the Kia EV9 in June 2023. Customers experienced, for the first time, a FoD (Features on Demand) D2C service where they pick and buy car features — Remote Smart Parking Assist 2, lighting patterns, Streaming Plus — to suit their needs and tastes. As the slogan 'A first for everyone' put it, the service had no precedent for customers or builders. We had to design the whole process from choosing a product to paying, installing it in the car and actually using it. Between those steps lay data exchanges between the car and many legacy systems — web, ERP, CRM, OTA and payment.

Strategic Lens

We designed a common platform built for all group brands and global expansion.

Although it launched with one model, the EV9, we designed it as a common platform built for every group brand — Kia, Hyundai and Genesis — and for global rollout. A common structure serves web, mobile web and hybrid app, adapts to each country's policies, and is ready for future SDV models and software products. With vehicle development, product planning, customer support and system teams all involved, we first had to understand and define each team's language. Scenarios such as cancelling a purchase or subscription, or replacing hardware at a service center, were reinterpreted from a CX/UX perspective. Daily scrums and agile testing narrowed the gaps between teams and established how systems exchange information and process services.

Creative Approach

We created a buying experience where one-time purchase or subscription is chosen like an option on the product detail page.

Because FoD succeeds or fails on customer experience, we focused on the purchase and usage stages across the whole journey — the CCS apps (My Kia, Kia Connect), in-car payment, and app and web. Unlike ordinary e-commerce, the same product could be bought outright or by monthly or yearly subscription. Treating them as separate products in data would show the same item twice in the list, so we let customers choose the payment method like an option on the product page. The screen stays simple, but it required rethinking the product data model and admin pages from a completely different angle than a typical online store. We reviewed every case for customers and operators — payment, refund, changing payment methods, cancellation and pro-rata settlement — and brought it to a working service.

Delivered Experience

With the launch of the EV9, we opened Korea’s first vehicle software store.

Korea's first car software store, Kia Connect Store, opened alongside the EV9. We contributed to detailed policies through legal reviews and government policy analysis for each payment case, and built a pro-rata refund simulator that accounts for leap years, leap months and VAT, used to verify both policy and development. To ease the hassle of installing and approving online purchases in the car, we also helped develop user guide content. The purchase and payment flow was designed to surface the right information at the right time, and development was finalized using the results of pre-launch usability testing. From a common platform to system integration and the customer service environment, we laid the groundwork for FoD to spread across the group and globally.