Kia US EV Sales Grow 70% in October – CleanTechnica

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Kia just announced its October sales for the US market, and it especially highlighted strong electrified vehicle sales. Tackling each segment of the “electrified” market separately, the company wrote: “Sales of Kia’s all-electric (EV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and hybrid (HEV) vehicles increased by 70-percent, 65-percent, and 49-percent respectively compared to last year, which helped the brand achieve its highest-ever sales for electrified models in October.”

Focusing in on pure electric models, the EV9 had the most sales in October, 1,941. That’s compared to 0 (zero) the year before. The EV6 had 1,732 sales, up from 1,542 in October 2022. Kia also still sells the Niro EV, but it doesn’t break out those model-specific sales for EVs. Nonetheless, all Niro trims combined had only 1,546 sales, fewer than either the EV6 or EV9.

“Kia continues to appeal to a broad range of consumers as we offer 10 compelling utility models many with a choice of all-electric, plug-in hybrid, hybrid and ICE powertrains,” Eric Watson, vice president of sales operations at Kia America, says.

If we extrapolated the 3,673 EV9 and EV6 sales from October out across 12 months, they’d be at 44,076 sales a year. Well … that’s something … but it’s still a drop in the bucket. It’s significantly fewer sales than Kia’s combined 68,908 sales in October. It’s also significantly fewer sales than Tesla makes in a month in the USA.

So, yes, we can celebrate the progress, but Kia is still far, far, far away from becoming a significant EV player or having a significant share of its sales coming from EVs. We soldier on.