South Korea's Hyundai Group has spared no effort to develop electric vehicles. From the perspective of pure electric platforms, it can be said that it is following in the footsteps of Tesla. Now it has announced that it will launch a low-cost electric car with a target price of 20,000 euros.
South Korea's Hyundai Group is developing electric vehicles at a rapid rate. Based on the new pure electric architecture E-GMP, it first released two crossover SUVs, the Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6. The market has responded very well. Lower pricing would now be ideal to challenge the entry-level pure electric car market.
When it comes to cheap electric cars, Hyundai Group is new to the market like Hyundai Kona Electric, Kia Niro EV, etc. Kone Electric is sold in Taiwan. It is indeed the cheapest pure electric car on the market, priced below NT$150 million. However, these vehicles are all converted from fuel vehicles, so specifications are still difficult to compare with new pure electric platform cars. Interior space is also the same as that of fuel vehicles and can only be regarded as transitional products.
Hyundai Group hopes to continue to launch new models on the E-GMP pure electric platform and one of the keys is to target the entry-level price of 20,000 euros. Andreas Christoph Hofmann, marketing director of Hyundai Motor Europe, said that small cars are very popular in Europe. "Everyone in the industry knows that the target price of this kind of car is 20,000 euros, which cannot be too high."
Of course, this market is also the target of Volkswagen. Its Cupra, Skoda, and Volkswagen are all ready to launch models of around 20,000 euros. Hyundai must keep up with the pace if it wants to seize this market.
Interestingly, since Hyundai Motor developed a pure electric platform, almost every model has had its eye on Tesla. The first released Ioniq 5 is a competitor to the Model Y and the recently announced Ioniq 6 is for the Model 3 and is expected to be launched next year. The latest Ioniq 7 will be a three-row 7-seater pure electric recreational vehicle, which is aimed at the Model X.
As early as two years ago, Tesla said that it would build a electric car for the people under US$25,000. Rumors have been circulating for a long time but there is still no movement. Hyundai is now following up to make a low-cost car but whether it can surpass Tesla in an innovative way depends on the project management capabilities of both parties. After all, Tesla has too many things queued up. Forget low-priced cars, Cybertruck and Tesla Semi are still struggling and even the high-priced Model S / X continues to be difficult to produce.
In any case, more and more competitors are beginning to fill the electric vehicle market on different levels, which is definitely a good thing for consumers. After the battery supply stabilizes, the price of electric vehicles will have an opportunity to drop again, but will that day really come?
(Image: Hyundai)
