Kia EV6, Still too expensive for the middle class, but it’s more competition in our market which is a very good thing.
Then there’s the V2L feature as well, a game changer for those only looking for some backup for essentials during load shedding.
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It’s beautiful. I saw one in the flesh in The Netherlands earlier this year. There is also the Hyundai version of that car, the Ioniq 5. It starts around 40k USD (same as the base trim RAV4 prime PHEV), and it undercuts the Tesla options significantly.
But at 1.2 million… it is still too much. It should be in the 800k bracket…
Cut the silly EV taxes and it will be in the R800k bracket.
I must say, the last 2 or 3 years the most exciting new cars coming to market in my opinion has been models from hyundai and Kia, unfortunately their pricing also shot up quite dramatically where they were super well priced say 5 to 10 years ago.
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Because they can! In the 90s, you would not touch a Hyundai with a very long wooden plank! I remember the owner of the local (new) Hyundai dealership lived in Windhoek, not far from the hostel where I stayed in high school, so I would walk past there almost daily and see these new cars. Some of our best friends in Windhoek had an Accent and an Elantra from the early 2000s, and they really weren’t bad cars, but… they were not Corollas. You paid the premium for the Toyota because it was the better car.
And then… Hyundai got better, and now I’d say an Elantra is easily on par with a Corolla. They can and do charge more.
The only thing I will say about Hyundai/Kia, which I think I am allowed since we have one in the household fleet, is if you need anything beyond basic service material, it is not in stock, it is not even at the main “depot”. It has to be ordered from Korea, and it takes two weeks. Sometimes you get lucky and “Korean boys” have it, but if you drive the quirky “Soul” model, forget about body panels. It’s too rare, even if the mechanical bits are shared just about exactly with the Rio.
Still, I’ll take a Hyundai/Kia over a Ford any day now. Especially with Ford getting out of the small/medium segment.
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Also, I assume you’ve seen the N Vission 74? The 80s kid in me wants one! It’s like they got the mix of DeLorean, BMW M1 and Supra/GT86 just right.
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Or of Ford has to fix/refit the F150/250 because of this… Don’t know how you do it…
On the topic of the Koreans though, there is supposedly a small EV based on the i10 coming in 2024.
Makes an insane amount of sense… if it will be affordable.
One thing that tickles me a little on this topic. Usually the import costs are offset against exports. Hyundai has a factory in Benoni, BMW has one in Silverton if I am not mistaken. Is it somehow impossible to offset EVs and bring them in below a million? What gives?
They say Ford has been prepping it’s customers for EVs for years… They’re quite used to standing by the side of the road for 30mins to an hour regularly 
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FORD = Found On Road Dead
Or “Foute orals reparasies daagliks” 
Not to retread all the other threads again, but government needs to come to the party. Even separate of any specific intervention, they’ve missed their own deadline to announce the / a plan again.
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For one, I think the ad valorem luxury tax level needs an inflationary correction as well. The formula is (0.00003 x A) – 0.75%, so on a 40k USD car, 675k ZAR at the present time, that’s an extra 19.5% tax. In America, a 40k car is considered upmarket, but not ostentatious. Over here, the government thinks that makes you rich and hits you with a 20% tax bill… nice init?
That does look great! But what are they trying with those extractor fan rims ??
So we didn’t look in the small/medium segment recently, but test drove both the Santa Fé and Sorento amongst quite a range of other vehicles as these came highly recommended. I wasn’t impressed with the build quality. They felt like they tick a bunch of boxes just for the sake of ticking them. For example: Leather seats, ticked, but really not more comfortable than cloth ones in other brands.
My mother has an i20, which I also can’t see myself picking over a Honda, for example.
The above assessments don’t include consideration of price, but at this point these vehicles aren’t bargains anymore, so I’m not inclined to be content with a box simply being ticked.
That’s really the only thing I dislike about it. But I can forgive that, based on how hard they hit the ball out of the park on everything else.
If you really want to stick your head into a pillow and cry compare our personal income tax rates and at what income levels you start getting in the “Big leagues” compared to some OECD countries and its a joke.
But that is the price we have to pay for all this lovely sunshine I guess
But back to the topic at hand, I am personally waiting it out for either a secondhand ID4 in a couple years, or perhaps the new VW ID2/Life that is promised for 2025.
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Another reason to move back to Namibia. Top bracket is 37%, and the vast number of professionals are in the <=32% bracket. Namibia also has a source-based tax system, which means you are taxed only on money generated within Namibia (South Africa taxes on your worldwide income).
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Something else that came across my feed this morning. Volvo made an EV that is, comparatively speaking, rather excellent value for money. The P6 Recharge sells for 1.075 million, comes with 3 years of comprehensive insurance, and 2-weeks per year use of a petrol vehicle (for your holiday of course). With a range of over 400km and a charging station in Laingsburg, it can actually reach my in-laws too.
The problem… they imported 25 of them, and it all sold out in 24 hours.
However, if this is the competition, surely the EV6 should be able to come in at below a million? I mean, maybe with some export-credit offsetting or something. A man can dream.
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That Volvo is looking very nice yes, I have a family member who’s got a deposit down on the next batch they are importing.
Going by Volvo’s second hand value, you can wait a year or 2 then buy one of those for R3.50 
That’s the trouble with second hand luxury European vehicles. Sure, in about 5 years they lose 60% of their value (not always, but in many cases), yet buying one of these vehicles can still be one of the most expensive mistakes you can make.
The thing I am presently pondering, is whether you won’t still have a lot of the same kind of expenses as you do now. On your average 3-series, as long as you don’t have the valvetronic engine, it is not the engine that breaks. It’s window regulators, climate control, suspension parts… I imagine that replacing the engine with an electrical motor isn’t going to improve that side of things.
Which means, that Volvo is probably not going to be a good deal ever… but if it adds competition and drives the price down, I am all for it! Also perfectly happy to be wrong when I am this negative about something
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I have an issue with that statement.
Because it inevitably leads to cost-cutting on some levels. Or cheaper components in other areas.
Some things just cost what they cost.