The first shipment of Hyundai’s Kona electric cars to be delivered outside of South Korea has sailed into the ports of Norway – and the cars are already sold.
The long-range all-electric CUV has been much anticipated in the Scandinavian country ever since prices were released by Hyundai Norway in June. Since then, the company has reported taking 20,000 orders for the EVs – nearly 7,000 in one record two-week period – requiring them to close the order books not long after.
As we have reported, Norway is already streets ahead of the rest of the world on EV adoption, and product manager Øyvind Lillestrøm Knudsen of Hyundai Motor Norway says the incredible interest in the Kona is not surprising.
“This is the first electric car with a sensible price tag that offers both tremendously long range, full range of active safety and a complete multimedia package,” he said.
Just 100 models were delivered last week to Norway’s Drammen Harbor, but Hyundai has said that ‘hundreds of cars’ will follow shortly.
“A lot of customers are now waiting for their KONA electric, and now we are looking forward to getting started with deliveries to our customers,” Christian Stenbo, Marketing Director in Hyundai Motor Norway, said in a press release.
The CUV arriving on Nordic shores is the high-range, high-performance model with a 64kWh battery pack. Hyundai says that with this battery pack, the EV can drive nearly 470km on a single charge.
The automaker will also make available a ‘short-range’ 39.2kWh battery pack option with a range of 300km, however only the long range will be available in Australia, a representative from Hyundai Australia has confirmed with RE.
Hyundai had previously said the Kona would make it to Australian shores later this year, but now a late 2018 production start will mean an early 2019 launch is ‘probably more realistic’.
The price for the base model in Norway was set at NOK 325,900 which is equivalent to around $A53,600 – about the same as a new Hyundai Santa Fe Elite. Alas, we are still no more in the know about a price for Australia.
However Australian EV fans can be assured that, according to Hyundai’s spokesperson, “IONIQ will launch late September…Nexo is planned for launch in 2019, depending on infrastructure development and first customers.”
