The car I drive, the Kia EV6, and a number of others in the Hyundai/Kia electric lineup, support a functionality called “Vehicle to Load” whereby you can plug a special adapter into the J1772 charging port that has a normal NEMA 5-15 household plug on the other end (or whatever your geographically local version is) so that you can power normal appliances from your car.
The adapter is terribly simple, here’s what’s inside it:
For whatever reason, the official adapter from HMG/Kia is hideously expensive, like $500. After I took it apart and realized how straightforward it is, I decided it would make the most sense to sell the one that came with my car at a profit, and build my own for much less money, and maybe with better features so I did that. (Back in May 2022 when I actually did this project, there weren’t 3rd party adapters available everywhere like there are now.)
What I came up with was about $60 in parts (a J1772 plug, a pushbutton switch with AC-tolerant LED indicator, and an extension cord cut in half. With that, I get a slightly more compact adapter that fits any kind of plug and has a bit of length to the cord to bring the outlet to a more usable location for most appliances. (The original adapter has a recessed plug on the solid body itself, so things like wall warts often simply can’t plug in.)
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