Kia Notches 12 Months Of Year-Over-Year US Sales Growth In July 2023

What do I mean by this? Let’s look at Kia’s July sales figures for the US and find out. Kia had six models posting year-over-year sales increases, two of which were electric, or electrified models. Those models were the Niro (up 384%), which comes in Hybrid (HEV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and electric (EV) versions, and the EV6 (up 13%), which is only made and sold as an EV. The Niro’s dramatic 384% increase sounds quite impressive, but the huge increase is due to the fact that in July last year, Kia was “selling through” their remaining stock of the previous model year (an older design) in preparation for the arrival of the redesigned 2023 Niro model line. The 3,112 Niros that Kia sold in the US last month is actually a slightly lower figure than Kia has sold in the US in the two most recent months, and should actually be described as a “normal” volume of sales for Kia (when there isn’t a sell through situation occurring). Thus, we should actually focus on Kia’s other models to understand where their year-over-year increases are really coming from.

As I mentioned above, US EV6 sales were also up by 13%, for a total of 1,937 sales last month. That is Kia’s second highest monthly sales total for the EV6, this calendar year, so it is a good, if somewhat humble, increase. I’ll note that, while I have no means of verifying the accuracy of the following statement, the estimate I use for the breakdown of sales amongst the various Niro models is very roughly: 60% HEV, 30% EV, and 10% PHEV. This means that all in, for July 2023 in the US, Kia only sold roughly 2,870 EVs. That is only about 4.2% of Kia’s total sales volume in the US last month. That still may be a higher percentage of total sales than some other legacy automakers, but it speaks to how Kia isn’t seeing the kind of EV sales growth they would otherwise have hoped for. Instead, the 72% year-over-year sales growth Kia claimed for its electrified models comes in large part from increasing sales of its hybrid versions of the Niro, Sportage and Sorento models. What is interesting is that both those models saw their sales decrease in July, year-over-year, with the Sorento down 10% and the Sportage down 1%. This means that either Kia’s claimed growth comes almost entirely from the Niro’s “return to normal” sales volumes for the month of July, or that a larger percentage of Sportage and Sorento sales are now of the hybrid versions of each (given their lower overall sales figures).

Finally, I’ll point out that the majority of Kia’s real sales growth is mostly in its non-electrified, fully gasoline powered model lines. Specifically, the Carnival (up 136%, year-over-year), Seltos (up 39%), the Rio (up 18%), and the Telluride (up 17%) are responsible for most of the growth overall (that didn’t come from either the Niro or EV6). I roughly estimate the gasoline only component of Kia’s US sales to be responsible for about 12 of the 14% total year-over-year sales growth in July, and only the remaining 2% being due to increased Niro or EV6 sales.

Does it sound to you like Kia’s EV sales are continuing to languish a bit? Are you skeptical of the actual significance of a 72% increase in their electrified vehicle sales? Please leave your thoughts and questions below.

Images courtesy of Kia.

Justin Hart has owned and driven electric vehicles for over 15 years, including a first generation Nissan LEAF, second generation Chevy Volt, Tesla Model 3, an electric bicycle and most recently a Kia Sorento PHEV. He is also an avid SUP rider, poet, photographer and wine lover. He enjoys taking long EV and PHEV road trips to beautiful and serene places with the people he loves. Follow Justin on https://www.torquenews.com/kia for regular electric and hybrid news coverage.A