Electric car market gets hotter with new Korean models

The electric vehicle market just got hotter, with Hyundai Motor muscling in new EVs that are touted to have the “most electric”.

Earlier this year, the South Korean carmaker 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 United States this year through May, Hyundai sold 21,467 of these two machines, besting even the white-hot Ford Mustang Mach-E, which was snapped up by 15,718 drivers.

“From an EV perspective, they’re really just kind of cleaning the floor,” says Edmunds analyst Joseph Yoon. “I honestly don’t know if any dealers around me have any in stock.” Tesla still sells far more cars, but it took the company a decade to deliver as many electric vehicles as Hyundai managed in a few short months.

The timing was favourable. EV adoption is picking up in the United States, thanks to a surge in both climate concern and fuel prices. And though there’s a run on battery-powered vehicles, there still are not many to choose from. Of the 30 or so models for sale in the US, only a few can be had for less than US$45,000 (S$62,700) and most of those are relatively small, dated cars like the Nissan Leaf.