Kia EV Sales Soar To New Monthly Sales Record In USA — But Still So Far To Go

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Kia has some nice electrical automobile information. It simply reached a brand new month-to-month EV gross sales document for itself in the USA. In reality, the corporate’s US EV gross sales elevated 61% in comparison with their earlier month-to-month gross sales document, which was in April 2022 (sure, two years in the past).

The Kia EV9 reached 1,572 sales in Apriland enhance of 144% yr over yr, whereas the EV6 reached 2,051 gross sales, up 65% yr over yr.

Clearly, that is nice information. That’s sturdy development and it’s at all times good to set new EV gross sales information. It’s additionally not stunning, because the EV9 and EV6 are very good electrical autos — two of the perfect available on the market, indubitably.

Nonetheless, on the similar time, I feel the passion must be tempered slightly bit, as a result of we have to go lots additional, and Kia must go lots additional.

Mixed, the EV6 and EV9 accounted for 3,623 gross sales in April. That’s out of 65,754 Kia gross sales in whole, which suggests they accounted for simply 5.5% of Kia’s gross sales. That’s about half of what several leading automakers in terms of EV share are getting in the USit’s barely greater than a 3rd of what Mercedes achieved within the 4th quarter, and it’s far under leaders (and even the norm) in different markets in fact. The excellent news is that it’s at the very least an enormous bounce from the two.9% Kia itself had within the 4th quarter.

Perhaps it’s unfair to check to Tesla, however that is the usual within the US, and the very fact of the matter is that Kia continues to be far under Tesla’s degree. Tesla offered about 660,000 electrical vehicles within the US final yr. If you happen to multiplied that 3,623 April whole from Kia by 12 (12 months within the yr), you’d get 43,476 gross sales. Sure, simply 43,476 gross sales. That’s about 6.6% of Tesla’s 2023 gross sales whole within the nation. Can Kia actually solely attain 6.6% of Tesla’s US gross sales whole? Personally, I feel it will possibly do significantly better, and will do significantly better.

However perhaps that’s unfair. On the April gross sales charge, Kia is on observe for 789,048 whole gross sales within the US in 2024. Can we actually anticipate Kia to be getting near 100% EV share in a rustic that’s up to now behind in EV market share? Properly, one can dream, however that might certainly be a excessive bar.

In abstract, I feel it’s nice information that Kia EV gross sales grew 61% over their earlier month-to-month gross sales document, from two years in the past, and quickly climbed up from 2.9% of the corporate’s whole auto gross sales to five.5%. However I additionally anticipate far more from Kia at this level. It creates extremely compelling, aggressive, top-tier electrical autos. These are nice vehicles and SUVs, fingers down! Absolutely, the corporate can do higher to make extra of its gross sales EV gross sales slightly than fuel automobile gross sales. Absolutely, it may very well be extra aggressive with the Tesla Mannequin Y and different Tesla autos. Proper?

Am I being unfair? Ought to we simply have a good time every massive leap in a model’s EV gross sales and EV share of gross sales? Or ought to we anticipate extra from corporations like Kia at this level?