Hyundai targets Tesla in Australia
Expansion of electric vehicle range and improved supply critical to Korean brand’s aggressive EV strategyHyundai says it will give Tesla “a good shake” in Australia’s EV sales race – but not until after 2025, when more mainstream battery-electric models potentially become available to it.
A number of factors led by supply restrictions allow only limited numbers of Hyundai EVs to arrive in the local market over the next few years.
The Korean giant’s Australian arm sold about 2500 EVs in 2022. Meantime Tesla sold 19,594 electric Model 3 sedans and Model Y SUVs in Australia last year and sits miles clear atop the EV sales ladder.
“Do we think we could chase Tesla down if we had equivalent supply today? I ask myself the same question all the time,” admitted Hyundai Australia chief operating officer John Kett.
“I think we would give it a good shake, but the reality is we can’t get that supply.”
Hyundai sells the IONIQ 5 SUV and freshly-launched IONIQ 6 sedan in Australia, and will add the hot IONIQ 5 N and renewed Hyundai Kona Electric before the end of the year, followed by the IONIQ 7 large SUV in 2024.
After getting only 700 examples of the IONIQ 5 into Australia in 2022, Hyundai estimates it will import nearly 3000 IONIQ EVs here in 2023 and 6000 in 2024.
But Kett said further EV model range expansion would be needed – along with more supply – to make tackling Tesla a viable goal.
“I would say we’d be in a real meaningful place to have this [Tesla-beating] conversation sometime after 2025,” he told carsales at last week’s IONIQ 6 launch.
Kett nominated a number of factors that could affect the EV situation in Australia:
A downturn in the US and European economies freeing up more EV supply for Australia.
The introduction of an Australian government emissions standard that could encourage more demand for EVs.
The “transition” of the wider Hyundai brand from internal combustion to EV powertrains.
“We’ve got to do a lot more work around the mainstream volume opportunities such as the Kona EV,” said Kett.
“We can hopefully talk early next year about two or three others we can hopefully bring in.”
One of those new EVs could be the electric version of the pint-size Casper light SUV first revealed for Korea in 2021 (pictured).
Globally, including the IONIQ 6 and 7, the Hyundai brand intends to introduce 11 new EVs by 2030, including three sedans, six crossovers, one light commercial vehicle and a “new type” model it is yet to detail.
This plan, revealed in March 2022, did not break down which of these models would be badged Hyundai and which would be IONIQ.
“If in 2024 we start to bring in – or start signalling – more mainstream EVs, we probably won’t see the benefit until 2025 or 2026,” Kett said.
Even then, he admitted, the impact of these mainstream electric models would be dependant on not only securing them, but also gaining a decent chunk of production from factories that would need to increase their capacity.
“There are all these variables that say 2025 is a good day for us, if we were punting, to say that’s when we get some meaningful improvement,” Kett said.
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