Hyundai Says It’s Been Overwhelmed by Demand for the Kona EV

When Hyundai announced that it would build an electric version of its Kona subcompact crossover, we had a feeling it would be a hit. It offers an impressive 258 miles of range, a relatively affordable $37,495 MSRP, and better-than-expected driving dynamics. But as it turns out, the Kona EV ended up being even more popular than Hyundai expected.

InsideEVs first noticed the rollout might be going a little too well when forum members began reporting that they couldn’t get the Kona EVs they had tried to order through their dealers. Back in November, Hyundai had said that even though it planned to slowly increase the number of states where it sold the electric CUV, it also planned to fulfill a “sold order” anywhere the Kona EV wasn’t officially available. But according to forum members in those states, that wasn’t actually happening.

To figure out what the problem was, InsideEVs contacted Hyundai for clarification. The Korean automaker responded by saying, “Given the current demand for Kona Electric in California and other ZEV states, we aren’t able to support volume sales in all non-ZEV states at this time. In the near future, we do plan to offer Kona Electric in non-ZEV states that exhibit higher electric vehicle demand.”

Unfortunately for us, Hyundai doesn’t report Kona EV sales separately from the gas-powered version, so we can’t say exactly how many it’s sold. But hopefully, customers who can’t yet get their hands on the car can understand that automakers can’t scale up production overnight. We do sympathize with them, though. Like we said in the beginning, the Kona is one of the best affordable EVs on the market.

Source: InsideEVs

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