As requested and planned by CEO Elon Musk, Tesla has driven traditional automakers to develop modern electric cars as well. Gradually they are coming onto the market – and because Tesla cannot do everything at the same time, in some classes and regions even in front of the electric pioneer’s cars. So Europe has to wait until the start of the German Gigafactory for the Tesla Model Y , at least until summer 2021. Before that, however, Polestar, VW and Skoda want to offer new electric crossovers – and, as has now become known, also Hyundai, and indeed with advanced battery technology.
Batteries like Tesla Model 3 and Y
Already at the IAA in September 2019, Hyundai had introduced an electric concept car called 45, in retrospect almost a little in the aesthetics of the Tesla Cybertruck : angular and metallic, but still far less radical. A little later, it became known from Hyundai’s home country Korea that a series-production electric car was to be built on this basis, and would be produced at the Ulsan plant from the first quarter of 2021. And surprisingly, BusinessKorea announced that it may then be exported to Europe first in order to benefit from the interest there in electric cars and to lower its own EU average of CO2 emissions.
And these plans have clearly become more concrete. This week Erlkönig photos of the still camouflaged series version of the next electric Hyundai and semi-official data were published. The car in crossover or SUV format is 4.63 meters long, 1.89 meters wide and 1.60 meters high, according to the well-known electric car company Sangl, the batteries should have 58 or 73 kilowatt hours of capacity, similar to the Tesla Model 3 and later Model Y.
Tesla Model Y not before summer 2021
The first copies would “be delivered in less than a year,” Auto Sangl currently writes , but does not name any prices. It is also interesting to specify the dealership on the charging performance of the Series 45. It is said to be up to 200 kilowatts, which should confirm that the battery and drive in the E-Hyundai actually work with 800 volts. This was the statement by Huyndai and sister Kia for the new platform E-GMP, on the basis of which the first electric cars were to come in 2021.
For deliveries from the first quarter of 2021, the Hyundai 45 (if it will be called the same in series) could be the fourth modern electric car in the popular crossover format that preemptes the Tesla Model Y in Europe. A date specified by the Brandenburg state government for the start of production in the Gigafactory near Berlin next summer has not been corrected so far, Tesla itself only writes in the latest quarterly report of 2021 in general.
Competition from Polestar, VW, Skoda
By then the Polestar 2 from China will be in Germany , the first deliveries of which are announced for June. According to a reporter , the crossover offshoot of the new VW ID.3 is already being produced in Germany . A fixed launch date for the ID.4 has not yet been announced, but the whole group wants to launch more electric cars starting with the ID.3 in the summer in rapid succession, and the ID.4 should be the next this year. And just last week, the Volkswagen Skoda brand announced that it would probably start delivering an E-SUV called Enyaq in early 2021 ; in the base it should be much cheaper than the Tesla Model Y.
If Huyndai now also offers an alternative to the Tesla original with the 45 – especially early in Europe – many interested parties could at least take a look at it. This is all the more true since the Koreans already have two presentable and efficient electric cars in a somewhat smaller format on the European market with Hyundai Kona Electric and the Kia e-Niro. And when it comes to charging infrastructure, Huyndai could offer at least the same (price) level of the otherwise expensive fast columns from Ionity as the Volkswagen brands: In September 2019, the company announced its entry into the joint venture of the German car manufacturers.