you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 4 points 3 days ago (1 child)

If they could make it in South Korea at that price, it would be roughly that much (plus transport) in Europe because we have 0% tariffs on South Korean manufactured cars. They can not make it in South Korea for anywhere close to that price though.

China is incredibly protectionist when it comes to foreign cars and in addition it has a very well integrated lithium supply chain that the rest of us can't match (environmental concerns being one reason we don't have such extensive lithium mining, manufacturing and refinement in Europe). Cars for the Chinese market are made by subsidiaries owned partially by Chinese (usually at least half Chinese owned, BMW is an exception in that they now own a whopping 75% of their Chinese subsidiary and Tesla gets an exemption altogether because they're special). So this Hyundai, produced by Hyundai Beijing, will get battery pricing that they couldn't get even in South Korea despite the fact that South Korea has its own battery manufacturers (LG). I won't even get into how cheap Chinese labor still is compared to European, though South Korean labor might still be cheapish too compared to Europe.

In response to this protectionism scheme, countries (USA) and trade blocs (EU) with their own automotive industries have decided to put tariffs on China. Because it is, quite literally, impossible to compete in manufacturing with a country of over a billion people not bound by equivalent environmental and labor standards compared to our own, coordinating a unified trade and manufacturing strategy. These cars are artificially cheap.

CATL will sell European manufacturers batteries for over 100€ a kWh. Chinese manufacturers get them for about 40€ per kWh currently. Other manufacturers exist, but CATL and BYD are the kings right now.

With non-lithium battery tech Europe could catch up in part since we could have friendlier battery pricing and perhaps even our own subsidies on it, but right now lithium is still king. Even NMC batteries still use lithium, despite having literally 3 other elements in their name. Catching up on the cost of manufacturing itself means either more automation in factories, or cheaper workers.

Sodium-ion could change this at the cheap end of the market eventually (low energy density, so not great for high-end cars). Much less environmental impact and more abundant minerals.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago

    If they could make it in South Korea at that price, it would be roughly that much (plus transport) in Europe because we have 0% tariffs on South Korean manufactured cars. They can not make it in South Korea for anywhere close to that price though.

    Current Ioniq 5 is 50k€ here

  • source
  • parent