Affordable Electric Cars “Not Viable”, Says Kia Boss

[klondike]

A mass market in affordable electric cars will not happen soon because of the difficulty of producing them on a commercially viable basis, one of the largest makers of 'zero-emission' vehicles for British drivers has warned. The Times has the story.

Paul Philpott, U.K. Chief Executive of Kia, the fast-growing South Korean car company, said it had no immediate plans for a mass-market electric product.

Some fear there is a prospect of a society of haves and have-nots in the electric car revolution because of the sheer cost of buying or financing a zero-emission vehicle.

Philpott's prediction also threatens to undermine the Government's ban on selling petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030.

With price inflation roaring ahead in the past couple of years, there are only a handful of electric cars available below £30,000, compared with the less than £20,000 that motorists would expect to pay for mass market or entry-level petrol cars. Even the smallest electric car, the zero-emission version of the Fiat 500, starts at about £30,000.

This month the Advanced Propulsion Centre, the Government's automotive electrification agency, significantly cut electric car forecasts for 2025 because "buyers are expected to stick with cheaper options for longer".

While European and Asian manufacturers have been stepping up production of electric vehicles, they have been concentrating on more expensive models to make healthy profit margins on the cost of installing electrified systems. The battery pack is the costliest component of an electric car. The smaller the car, the larger the proportion the battery in its production cost.

Unveiling Kia's product launches, Philpott outlined plans to increase the 16,000 electric cars it sold in the U.K. last year to more than 20,000 in 2023. But he conceded: "The electrification of the small car is really difficult, economically speaking."

https://dailysceptic.org/2023/01/24/affordable-electric-cars-not-viable-says-kia-boss/

[Jacqueline]

I was listening to one of those "green" people yesterday, basically they ( and I guess the mainstream parties too who would never say as much) don't want you to have a car at all not even even electric.  You should walk, cycle or use public transport , cars are to be discouraged probably starting by buy pricing off the road the poorer people until the rich eventually have the roads to themselves.  

I think that's follows on to our domestic electricity and gas, price the ordinary person out then there is plenty for those with the money to pay for it, maybe for good measure kill off some with hypothermia  that would save on resources.

[Raven]

What a jolly lot the Green Ikes are. What they seem to forget is, every day they are getting older and nearer to their own retirement, same as the rest of us. They won't all be rich most will be relying on the pension and one day they will be the ones the new generation of bright young green sparks want rid of.

[Ashy]

My humble opinion is that battery electric private cars will only ever have limited practical use. The hybrid vehicle has extremely low emissions and is considerably more practical. However the conventional motor car seems to be the people's natural choice. Perhaps they should come back to the question of electric cars in another generation when the technology may have been developed, and leave it again if it hasn't.

In the mean time cities might like to look at trolleybuses again, they served us well from the 1920s to the 1960s and are still in use on the continent.

[Michael Rolls]

the Kia boss clearly knows of what he speaks, unlike the green clowns. £30,000 for a bloody Fiat 500? Pull the other one!