Just introduced by Toyota
Segment leaders such as Tesla, Nio and Xpeng may have made their mark on the Chinese consumer, but low-priced EVs are enjoying the mass appeal in the East Asian country.
EVs, such as a $10,000 crossover vehicle made by Hozon Auto, are attracting customers due to lower maintenance costs and a smaller price tag…“These ultracheap EVs are reaching a new customer in China, as they likely will in other markets as prices come down,” said Siyi Mi, a BloombergNEF analyst.
Availability of a wider range has the Chinese consumer spoilt for choice. There is the Hozon Auto Neta N01. Also available is the e1 minicar from Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett-backed BYD Company Ltd priced at $8,950 and the Hong Guang Mini, a two-door vehicle available for just $4,230. The Hong Guang Mini, built by Wuling — a joint venture between General Motors Company and the state-owned SAIC Motor — reported sales in excess of those by Tesla’s Model 3 by two-to-one late last month.
“Taking into account people’s access to transportation, it’s very important to see a greater diversity of models like EVs being offered on the lower end of the price range,” said Selika Talbott, a professorial lecturer and a founding partner of an automotive consultant company, Bloomberg reported. Priced at just under $30,000, the cheapest EV available in the U.S. after subsidies from a major vehicle maker is General Motors Company’s Mini Cooper SE.
This is where recent history has brought the EV market in both the US and China. The latter has a head start and – more important in my mind – the opportunity to sell a broader range of vehicles.
I don’t think the US is doing the EV rollout all wrong – it’s just the market in the US is probably a lot more responsive to a Tesla/iPhone approach to creating and expanding a new product: first make it sleek, expensive, and exclusive, and thus make it cool and desirable yet unaffordable to most, and then eventually leverage that desirability into cheaper, more accessible, and a lot more common models.
Can America Remain Preeminent?
The global influence of the US is threatened by the potentially chaotic unraveling of a political, security, and economic architecture that has structured the world for the past seventy or so years. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/04/29/can-america-remain-preeminent/