EV Boom Helps Drive Record US Sales for Hyundai and Kia

Demand for electric vehicles (EVs) helped drive record sales for South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia in the United States last month, as EV adoption continues to grow and Tesla’s dominance of the market slips.

Hyundai Motor America had “terrific” sales in November, especially for its lineup of “eco-friendly vehicles,” the company’s CEO Randy Parker noted in a statement released Thursday.

Retail sales of two EV models, the Elantra Hybrid sedan and Kona Electric SUV, rose 733 percent and 113 percent, respectively, compared to the same month in 2021. Including gas-powered cars, Hyundai sold a total of 63,305 units during the month, up 43 percent from November 2021, although year-to-date sales were down 5 percent compared to the same period last year.

Kia, an affiliate of Hyundai Motor Group, reported November sales of 56,703 units, climbing more than 25 percent from the same month last year. Sales of the company’s electrified models saw annual growth of 133 percent, marking the fifth consecutive month of double- or triple-digit sales increases for plug-in vehicles. Kia’s Niro EV model experienced a more than 69 percent sales jump.

All of Hyundai and Kia’s EV models are currently manufactured overseas and exported to the United States., so they do not qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit offered to U.S. consumers who buy EVs assembled in North America. The domestic source requirement was added to the EV tax credit with the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act in August.

Hyundai EVs to be Made in US

Hyundai plans to start making EVs in the United States at its assembly and manufacturing plant in Montgomery, Ala., as well as a $5.5 billion EV and battery plant near Savannah, Ga., that broke ground in October. Scheduled to start cranking out EVs by January 2025, the massive facility will initially have the capacity to make 300,000 units per year.

Although EVs make up an estimated 1 percent of the 250 million cars, SUVs, and light-duty trucks in the United States, demand is growing fast. Americans purchased over 200,000 EVs in the third quarter of this year, 67 percent more than in the same period of 2021, according to automotive research company Kelley Blue Book.

EV sales outpaced all other segments of the auto industry, with overall new car sales falling 0.1 percent in the third quarter. Leading EV maker Tesla is seeing its market dominance erode, as the brand accounted for 64 percent of the EVs Americans purchased, compared to more than 70 percent a year prior, Kelley Blue Book reported.

But it’s unclear whether the United States can build the infrastructure to support the mass adoption of EVs. The increase in light-duty EVs alone added 1,700 gigawatt-hours in annual energy load to the country’s electric grid in 2021, according to the independent and nonprofit energy research firm Electric Power Research Institute.