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Hyundai And Kia Are Releasing Fully Electric SUVs Next Year — More Competition For Tesla?

By Patricia Grannum
Published on: 09:17 PST, Oct 28, 2017

Hyundai and Kia Motors are expanding their fleet of electric vehicles. According to Electrek, the Korean car companies are planning to release battery-powered versions of some of their existing SUV Models. Hyundai is making an electric version of their Kona SUV while Kia will manufacture an electric version of its Niro SUV. With a 50kwH battery, each of these small electric SUVs will be able to go 200 miles on a single charge. The cost of each of these will be $39,000 at launch.

Business Korea reports that their longterm goal for these new EVs is to become the biggest power player in the green car market in Korea. Toyota is the only company that’s ahead of them. They’re also responding to the unexpected success of Hyundai’s all-electric Ioniq. The company set a monthly production target of 1000 Ioniqs in June of last year but they had to increase that because of demand in the market. However, the electric car is still on back order more than a year later because of supply-chain issues.

Hyundai and Kia have decided to ramp up the production of these EVs by 20,000 units. This will mean that collectively these car manufacturers will be producing more than 100,000 electric vehicles per year, starting next year. This figure includes production targets for the Ioniq EV, the Soul EV from Kia, the Sonata, and the K5 hybrid. They currently produce 20,000 units of the Ioniq EV and Soul EV every year.

As Electrek notes, these are comparatively small numbers when you line them up next to Tesla, Nissan, and GM. But the fact that it’s an increase is an indication of the company’s overall vision for their electric fleet.

This news of their increased investment in electric vehicles points toward a growing trend among manufacturers who have traditionally made gas vehicles. As the Inquisitr previously reported, Volvo plans to release a mass-market electric car next year that’s meant to compete directly with Tesla’s highly anticipated Model 3 vehicle. With the Model 3 currently in “production hell” according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Volvo may be able to take the wind of their sales.

Would you prefer to drive an electric car from Hyundai/Kia or from Tesla? What conditions/factors make you choose one brand over the other? Let us know your preference and the reason behind it in the comments section below.

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[Featured Image by Hyundai Motors]

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