Hyundai simultaneously has a big problem and a small problem – which happen to be the same thing. The brand has lots of electric vehicles, but doesn’t sell lots of electric vehicles.
Don’t take my word for it, Hyundai Australia CEO Don Romano did not mince words when discussing the current state of the brand’s EV sales performance.
“ We do a terrible job with our EVs,” Romano said, quickly adding, “On the record. We are not doing the job we should be.”
He went on: “Our market share of electric vehicles is extremely low relative to our market share of total vehicles, and the only explanation for that is that we haven’t put enough focus on it because I can see other companies that are selling electric cars that are doing a much better job with their EVs than they do with their ICE (internal combustion vehicles]. We’re the opposite.”
To be blunt, calling it ‘terrible’ might even be an understatement. Of the 45,586 vehicles Hyundai sold in Australia year-to-date to the end of July just 1153 were electric, that’s just 2.5 per cent of its total volume.
That’s despite having one of the biggest EV line-ups of any major ‘legacy’ brand, with six options – Inster, Kona, Ioniq 5, Ioniq 5 N, Ioniq 6 and, most recently, the Ioniq 9. The Ioniq 6 N and all-new Elexio are also on the way to join the line-up, further expanding Hyundai’s problem.
So how does Romano plan to fix this problem? The same way he intends to turn around the brand’s overall sales slide – by changing the way the brand interacts with its dealers.
“We’ve spent some time in the months that I’ve been here really discussing what, what’s at the, the root of that? Part of it is when we first came out with EVs, we were selling direct,” he said, referencing the initial online-only sales of the Ioniq 5. “We went around our dealers. So we have a job to do to get our dealers back to fold and to let them know that ‘no, we are going through our dealer body.’”
Romano said it was crucial that Hyundai works more closely with its dealers to do a better job of convincing customers of the merits of the brand’s EV models, big and small.
“ We need to really. It completely changed the way in which we interact with our dealers and communicate and train and market and then help them market to customers that are interested in EVs.”
To put Hyundai’s EV struggles into context, the brand’s stablemate, Kia, sold more than 750 EVs in July alone and has notched more than 5000 EV sales in the first seven months.
That makes Kia the third best-selling EV brand in the country, behind only Tesla and BYD, while Hyundai is all the way down in 10th, behind the likes of MG, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and even newcomer Geely.
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