SUVs are supplanting conventional sedans, hatchbacks, and wagons in gross sales, however the head of Citroën believes EVs might reverse that development.
“The world of SUVs is completed,” Citroën CEO Vincent Cobée stated in a current 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 house European marketplace for the previous few years.
But the necessity to maximize vary at an inexpensive value might 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 could possibly be counteracted by a bigger battery pack. However that provides weight and price, and so will not be a viable resolution in the long run, Cobée famous, including that the general public notion of SUVs as wasteful might finally curtail their attraction.
Jeep, a cousin of Citroën underneath 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 actual fact your entire Jeep model—one in every of Stellantis’ most worthwhile—will depend on them.
Jeep Avenger
And in some markets, just like the U.S., constructing a variety of mild vehicles could also be a part of a method to assist “run sooner than rules,” as Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares lately put it to Inexperienced Automotive 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 car comparability, underscoring that smaller SUVs are higher for the setting.