The cheap electric car is, at the moment, a mythological being. At least if we want it to offer us the same autonomy performance as a combustion car. And that variable continues to be what puts manufacturers back when they have to electrify their access versions.
The last to make it clear: Skoda.
“That’s for sure”. These are the words of Klaus Zellmer, CEO of Skoda, who has confirmed that “we will not electrify our basic models, such as the Fabia, the Kamiq or the Scala” in an interview with Automobilwoche. He then noted that they will keep them as mild hybrid models but “we will not launch them as purely electric vehicles, that’s for sure.”
Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised?
What Zellmer is not clear about, he explains in the interview, is that there is enough potential customer to make this cheap electric car a sufficiently profitable product.
“But…”. The “buts” are the big problem with the low-cost electric car. And that big but is, without a doubt, autonomy. Yesterday we explained that an electric car can be much cheaper than a combustion one if the type of use accompanies it. This “cheaper” is more pronounced in cities where electric cars gain in consumption, in the price of electricity compared to fuel and maintenance (due to having a lower risk of breakdowns).
The problem is that when the driver wants to go on a long trip he has to accept some discomfort. And not everyone is willing to do so. Does it make little sense to define your purchase by two long trips a year? Maybe, but here each one must evaluate How much is your time and money worth? Many people are still not compensated.
The strategy. For now, we know that Skoda will have its own version of a 25,000 euro electric car but it will not be released below this price. That is, he will have a brother Volkswagen ID.2 either Pole ID but he will not put on the market a brother of the Volkswagen ID.1the electric version that the German company will have in the range of 20,000 euros.
The movement makes a lot of sense. The Volkswagen Group uses the pull of the Volkswagen brand to champion the electrification of the automobile conglomerate. Launching an electric Skoda would force it to place it below its German brother due to the positioning of both companies in the market and they do not believe that there is sufficient demand to keep two models alive.
There is another detail to take into account, Renault has demonstrated with the Five that can sell many units of an electric car for between 25,000 and 30,000 euros. But it has done so with a very strong commitment to design and care, positioning it as a perfect car for the urban environment but also positioning it as the second beautiful, practical and cheap car in a home.
sell a lot. This is what a manufacturer needs if they want amortize the investment in an electric car low price. And the profit margins have narrowed in that segment given that the price of the battery continues to represent a very high cost in relation to the final price of the vehicle. To this we must add the safety obligations of the European Union, which have also made the survival of this type of automobile difficult.
Although the price of the battery has been falling (and is expected to continue doing so in the futureThe truth is that making a low-priced electric car profitable is very complicated. It is necessary to adapt production lines, have an adequate supply of batteries and, if you want to achieve maximum performance in autonomy and behavior, design your own platform.
That is why some manufacturers have chosen to share platforms (like Volkswagen and Ford) or renew cars that were becoming obsolete with a profound update to reposition them in the market as a new car, trying to amortize the initial investment, as in the case of the Dacia Spring.
Run before walking. What they defend at Skoda is that the transition has been done too quickly and that it is impossible for manufacturers to meet the given deadlines. We may more or less agree with this statement but the truth is that the public is not buying electric cars at the expected rate. And those cars worth between 20,000 and 25,000 euros are testimonials. In fact, of the 10 best-selling electric cars in Europeonly the Renault 5… and the Skoda Elroq are sold for less than 30,000 euros.
Of course, for now the threats of multimillion-dollar fines remain. first with a term that ends in 2027. Those who exceed an average of 93.6 gr/km of CO2 in their fleet sold since 2025 will be punished with a fine of 95 euros per gram of CO2 exceeded and car sold. That is, if the fleet of cars sold is one million and the average has been exceeded by one gram/km of CO2, we are talking about a fine of 95 million euros.
In 2030, that limit should be cut in half, leaving virtually everything that not be an electrified carthat’s why at Skoda they talk about maintaining their access models “until the end of the decade.” From there, 2035 should be the year in which cars with combustion engines will not be sold. Something that is in the air at night pressure from big manufacturers and countries like Germany o Italy with a large automobile related industry.
Photo | Skoda
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