Hyundai (DE.HYU) Quietly Climbs the EV Sales Charts and Elon Musk Notices (US.TSLA) - 27 iunie 2022
Pipe down for a second Elon, the hottest things in the auto industry — the most electric electrics — now come from Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. Earlier this year, the South Korean carmakers rolled out two new battery-powered cars — the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and its sibling, the Kia EV6 — which promptly tore up the sales charts, passing the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Bolt and every other electric vehicle on the market not made by Tesla. In the US this year through May, Hyundai and Kia sold 21,467 of these two machines, besting even the white-hot Ford Mustang Mach-E, which was snapped up by 15,718 drivers.
The timing was favorable. EV adoption is picking up in the US, thanks to a surge in both climate concern and gasoline prices. And though there’s a run on battery-powered vehicles, there still aren’t many to choose from. Of the 30 or so models for sale on the US market, only a handful can be had for less than $45,000 and most of those are relatively small, dated cars like the Nissan Leaf.
The Ioniq 5 and EV6 both offer the cargo space of a small SUV, the size and shape of vehicle that has taken over US garages of late. Both cars ride on the same modular platform, incorporate the same motors and batteries and post similar speed specifications. They are tricked out with screens and charge at some of the fastest rates in the industry, adding almost 16 miles of range in a minute under ideal conditions. They also offer a couple features that are novel in the space: pedals to adjust regenerative braking and bi-directional power (yes, you can run power tools or charge another EV with one of these machines).