SUVs are supplanting conventional sedans, hatchbacks, and wagons in gross sales, however the head of Citroën believes EVs may reverse that pattern.
“The world of SUVs is completed,” Citroën CEO Vincent Cobée mentioned in a latest interview with Auto Specific (through InsideEVs). That is a daring prediction contemplating that SUVs have accounted for 50% of all new automotive registrations in Citroën’s dwelling European marketplace for the previous few years.
But the necessity to maximize vary at an inexpensive price may trigger a change in automaker’s product-planning habits, Cobée argues, noting that the standard SUV form is not aerodynamically optimum.
2022 Citroen C5 X
Any vary loss from elevated aerodynamic drag may very well be counteracted by a bigger battery pack. However that provides weight and value, and so will not be a viable answer in the long run, Cobée famous, including that the general public notion of SUVs as wasteful may finally curtail their enchantment.
Jeep, a cousin of Citroën beneath the Stellantis household tree, would not appear to assume that to be the case, because it’s releasing its Avenger for Europe, whereas a rugged Recon EV is on the way in which for the U.S., amongst others. In truth your entire Jeep model—one among Stellantis’ most worthwhile—relies on them.
Jeep Avenger
And in some markets, just like the U.S., constructing quite a lot of mild vehicles could also be a part of a method to assist “run sooner than rules,” as Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares just lately put it to Inexperienced Automobile Experiences.
That begs the query of what a continued predominance of SUVs in an EV period would imply for total emissions reductions.
A 2021 report confirmed that the emissions advantages of any shift towards EVs was canceled out by the market’s persistent shift to SUVs. Within the U.S., the Division of Vitality has began utilizing SUVs as a benchmark for automobile comparability, underscoring that smaller SUVs are higher for the setting.