New KIA EV3 Introduction

LOL!

Opening sentence: "The people have spoken, and pretty much across the world, they want more affordable electric vehicles."

The car he's writing about: "...price range of $35,000 to $50,000."

Given these two bits, I think it would be pretty reasonable to expect that the author had spent his words lambasting Kia for the sort of failure that leads that opening sentence to the price tag quote.

But no, this guy's trying to gaslight his readers into thinking that these prices represent an affordable car.

 

Does it come with an optional 'adult styling' package?
I think I may have to go to the G4 sub-forum and beg them to forgive me for all of the insults that I have hurled at their car.
I'm actually a pretty big fan of the Kia brand - but they need to stop passing out the free mushrooms to the people who are designing their cars!

The Ioniq 6, already in serial production instead of being some napkin drawing, is cheaper than a T3, and nearly as cheap as this vaporware claims to be - AND it doesn't look like a leftover prop from a failed sci-fi series.

 

To clarify: I'm not criticizing Kia or the EV3.

My complaint is with Patrick George and insideevs.com editorial (if any.)

 

they need to start qualifying for the federal tax credit

 

chevy equinox ev is 33k -45k, and a lot better looking.

maybe if you keep hammering people with the '35k is affordable' thing, eventually they'll believe it.

 

If not better looking, at least the SAME looking.
My 2020 Terrain is basically the same car from the front wheels back.
People call them SUVs or CUV's but it's basically a small car with a low roofline on largish tires and wheels.
Other than that?
It's the same Equi-terrain that you see everywhere with a few styling changes inside and out.
That means that there will be a commonality of parts between the BEV and ICE versions.
HundaKias have been doing this for a while now with their 'maybe it's a gasser, maybe it's electric' cars.

Just 4 years ago, I broke out in a sweat cutting a $25,000 OTD deal on a nearly base model GMC variant of this same car.
If Electrocars are supposed to be so much cheaper to build and operate, and you're using the same basic platform, WHY the heck are they so much higher now?

You don't have to keep hammering people about inflation.
INFLATION is hammering people about inflation.

Tesla (love 'em or hate 'em) built a whole new car from the tire tread up with no supply and engineering tail and tried to develop L5 automation for the same car at the same time (a mistake, IMHO) and THEY manage to keep the price around $40k even today!

 

“Affordable” is a sliding scale.
Compared to the average sale price of a car around $48k, $35k is more affordable.
Compared to the cheapest new cars (around $20k) it isn’t.

What I find most ‘interesting’ is the quote makes it sound like this is a breakthrough that no one else ever did.
There are a number of EVs that have been priced the same or lower.

 

That's the sad part- they really might. They won't understand why they can only make car payments on the even months and rent on the odd months, but they'll believe it.

 

For the seller - yes.
For the buyer?
No.

It's more of a binary thing.
Either you CAN afford a new $35,000 car or you cannot, and I personally know of no new real-world $35,000 BEV with a more than 220 mile EPA (not real-world) range is sitting on a showroom in America at the time of this post.
I couldn't justify a $35,000 car that's JUST a car no matter HOW inconvenient it would be to charge it on trips, and even if such a car WERE really available.
So....
I bought something else - because the AVERAGE price for a new car in America might be $47,000 but the cheapest new car in America (MSRP only) is still $16,130.

Right now the cheapest new BEV is a Nissan Leaf.
Without tax kickbacks, it's probably close to $35k after delivery, tax, title, etc - and the first tank of amps.......maybe.
If you can drag the sales people away from the young couple buying a Titan with a 10x profit margin or a Versa for their college-bound graduate with 2-3x the same margin.....

Usually, inflation hurts the most economically disadvantaged portion of the population the hardest, but when it comes to cars and most especially BEVs it hits the higher wage earners MORE because most OEMs roll out more expensive versions of their "$35,000 300 mile" cars FIRST (looking at YOU - GM!)

The 2020's version of the REA(*) is scaling up slowly, but it IS helping with the availability - IF NOT the affordability.

(*)1936.....federal govermint kicking over money for rural electrification....

 

Hopefully a minor aside, but that's already too expensive for classic affordability guidelines on that median $50k salary.

If the tail wagged the dog, the median auto price to match that median salary would be about $12,200.

Written another way, half of the American driving public would be over-extending themselves financially to buy or replace their car even if they chose that very cheapest model, and a lot of them are getting suckered into buying a lot more than that.

 

Are the cars too expensive, or the median and lower bracket workers being under payed?

 

^ True That.

While we're in the present uncomfortable position of people not having nearly free access to money it's going to mean that expensive items will get MORE expensive.
It's going to affect solar too - because relatively few people have the ability to pay cash for a whole home, grid-tied system.
This means that the all-too-complicated schemes to get people to sign today and let the system pay for itself over time will have to get MORE complicated - AND more expensive.

That's probably a different topic in and of itself.
WHAT is under-payed?

If we try to look at this agnostically, according to the googles:
"According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in the United States in 2022 was $74,580, a 2.3% decrease from 2021. After taxes, the median household income fell 8.8% to $64,240 in 2022."

We'll split the difference and say $70K - which would be - what?
$4k a month real-world?
10-percent of this would be...$400 a month for car payments.
Even I have one of those now and if you're in what a certain Native American Senator called the "Two Income Trap" you may need TWO cars - but we'll presume a car that lasts, what?
10 years and 150,000 miles?
That means alternating payments on a 5 year loan with $400 payments at x interest if you JUST WANT TO KEEP UP with helping fund the US car industry.

SO.....
A household ($70k) using the 'recommended' percentage of their income (10%) for a car payment at today's rate (6.5%) "should" be looking at about a $20,000 car if they want to pay it off in just about the time it would take for the car to be about worthless (10y/150,000miles)

My daughter (a teacher) makes far less than half of my salary (slightly above average but that's with a military retirement)

If people were paid a 'fair wage' those figures would be far different!
Any more specific value ($15, $20, $100) would be getting into religion and/or politics AND.....since math is still math (according to my daughter who teaches math at a 4-6th grade level) it WILL change things like APR, MSRP, etc....
Cars are overpriced by about $7,000 for a single car family or $20,000 for most "normal" folks - if one presumes that these two things should be tied systemically.

Henry Ford became famous for helping provide cars that an average American with a good job could afford to buy.
In the 1920's the price of a new Ford Model A car ranged from $500 for a Tudor to $1,200 for a town car with a dual cowl. In 2023 dollars, these prices would be.................... $8,872 and $21,293, respectively
Average incomes back then were about $23,000 so Henry's prices are still reasonable TODAY.

Just remember....sometimes events (like pandemics) change economies and sometimes a recovery will affect SOME parts of the economy (Wall Street) MORE than they do main street.

What ELSE is it about the 20's that I seem to recall happening with Wall Street?????

 

Or start…

 

much better looking, but just my opinion. i don't think electric cars need to look weird, a trend beginning with the 2004 prius, and ending in 2023.
cheaper? who said that? everyone is trying to bring costs down, but batteries are still expensive.
electron costs depend on location. the bolt is not saving me any money. but then, neither did the prius.
artificially low gasoline prices in the u.s. rule the day.

 

all these articles about cheap ev's contain too many qualifiers and are simply clickbait, like the 600 mile battery that charges in 10 minutes.

 

affordable cars: there's already too much traffic. who isn't driving?