It was P.T. Barnum who maintained that the key to a great attraction was to “always leave ’em wanting more.”
In that regard at least, Kia Australia has inadvertently taken a leaf from the great showman’s playbook with its much-anticipated EV6 electric flagship. In short, demand has massively outstripped supply.
“We’ve had three times the pre-interest that we had on the Stinger,” admits Kia Australia’s General Manager, Product Planning Roland Rivero on the pre-launch buzz for the EV6. “We’re currently seeing around 25,000 with regards to expressions of interest.”
The more cynical of you will note that expressions of interest and actual orders can be a long way apart, but Kia reckons on 1800 firm dealer orders for the EV6 against an initial 2022 allocation of just 500 cars.
“We’re seeing a 50/50 split between existing Kia customers and 50 per cent new customers, hence why it’s so important as a halo model,” noted Rivero. The model split is expected to comprise around 20 per cent Air, 40 per cent GT-Line single-motor and 40 per cent GT-Line dual-motor.
With that sort of demand it’s not immediately obvious how the cars are allocated to customers. Damien Meredith, Kia Australia’s Chief Operating Officer is happy to throw some light onto that process.
“We’ve really come up with an innovative way of doing that,” he says, tongue firmly in cheek. “We’re going to let the dealers sell the cars.”
“We’ve allocated stock to the dealers and we’ll let it play out that way. A dealer in Dubbo may not have an order and so they can do a swap with a metro dealer to get a Sorento back. We’re allocating them to every dealer. Every dealer in Australia will get at least one EV6. We thought that was the best way to go about it.”
Given unlimited supply, Meredith believes Kia could easily shift 3000 cars per annum domestically, but notes that this aspiration is “la-la land” in terms of actual likelihood. A negotiation with Korea is ongoing for the release of additional allocation, but the numbers are modest. “If we can get another 100 cars, we’ll be doing exceptionally well,” admits Meredith.
Given that this is Kia’s first full EV for sale in Australia, the EV6 requires a step change in servicing techniques within the dealer network. Meredith is adamant that Kia is ahead of that particular curve. “We started quite early with the [dealer] training and setup, and around 85 per cent of the dealer network is fully equipped and trained.”
Kia finished last year as the fifth biggest selling manufacturer in Australia. “I really believe the result of last year is a result of supply,” says Meredith, hinting that it could have been even better. The supply issue is something that affects not just Kia, but the industry at large, and those supply-constrained conditions will be a challenge that will continue through 2022.
“It’ll still be tough. We want to sell 70,000 cars this year and I think we’ll get the supply to do that, but there’s not going to be a dramatic change. That 70,000 gets us to fourth position.”
As it stands, it looks as if just one in every 140 Kias rolling out of Australian dealerships in 2022 will be an EV6. As a halo product, it’ll have to punch pretty hard.
Keyword: Australia can't get enough of the Kia EV6. But neither can Kia...