Kia PV5 comes to you: Korea's first remote-driving car-sharing service
Kia has launched a pilot car-sharing service in Pangyo, South Korea, where the electric PV5 van reaches the customer and returns to base driven remotely.
What if your rental car drove itself to your door? Kia is making that happen in South Korea: it has launched the country's first remote-driving car-sharing service, using the electric PV5 van. The news was reported by "Electrek" and confirmed by the official release from Hyundai Motor Group.
How it works
The customer books the car in an app. The PV5 Passenger leaves the depot with nobody at the wheel, driven by an operator in a control centre, and arrives at the chosen spot. The customer gets in, drives as long as needed and parks. The operator then takes over again and brings the car back to the depot over 4G and 5G networks.
That removes two classic car-sharing hassles: walking to the car and returning it to a fixed spot.
Who takes part
The pilot started on Thursday, October 15, in Pangyo, the tech hub near Seoul, and runs until the end of the year. The service is aimed at employees of companies in the Second Pangyo Techno Valley.
Photo: Kia
Kia provides the vehicles and oversight, SUM supplies the remote-driving solution, Mobiops runs operations, and the Korea Road Traffic Authority handles the regulatory side.
A carefully prepared road
Safety has been taken seriously: communications are triple-redundant, operators receive dedicated training, and emergency teams are on call. The project received regulatory sandbox approval in April 2025, was demonstrated on public roads in November 2025, and continued with an agreement between Kia, KT and SUM in July 2026. An expansion is being prepared for 2027.
What it means for drivers
Remote driving could make renting an electric car as easy as ordering food. The PV5, built on a dedicated electric commercial-vehicle platform, is proving a great fit for services like this, and Kia shows that innovation can also come from how we use the car.
