In March Hyundai started the deliveries of the Kona Electric made at its European manufacturing plant, in Czech Republic. Back then European production was at 150 Kona Electrics per day and Hyundai planned to produce 30.000 electric cars this year in Europe.
Hyundai also expected that by delivering 80.000 electric cars to European customers this year, it would become the biggest provider of zero-emission vehicles in Europe in 2020.
However, due to the COVID-19 lockdown Hyundai suspended production at its Nosovice plant in the Czech Republic on March 21. Nonetheless, Hyundai was one of the first automakers to resume production in Europe, which happened on April 14.
How much did the lockdowns affected the production of Hyundai’s electric cars?
Let’s see the sales figures of Hyundai’s electric cars.
Hyundai IONIQ Electric
Domestic market (South Korea)
Foreign market (mostly Europe)
Hyundai Kona Electric
Domestic market (South Korea)
Foreign market (mostly Europe)
As you can see, in June Hyundai managed to sell 5.627 units of the Kona Electric outside its domestic market, which represents a sales record for this automaker.
It seems that the production of ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars was much more affected by the lockdowns than the production of electric cars. One possible explanation is that since electric cars are simpler to build and require far fewer parts, supplier list is also much shorter and resuming production is always less problematic.
However, EU car lobby is trying to postpone CO2 and safety targets – on the back of COVID-19, which makes no sense to me.
Considering that ICE car sales dropped a lot, automakers can comply with emissions regulations just by selling very few electric cars – and that’s why Volkswagen reduced the production of its electric triplets.
The call for a postponement of CO2 and safety laws seems to only benefit laggards like Fiat, and I hope that other automakers that did their job on time speak against it.
