'It's a struggle': Kia needs to have big sales of the 2025 Kia EV5, Kia EV3 to avoid paying penalties from new Australian government emissions laws

Australians aren’t buying as many EVs as they need to.

This is putting pressure on carmakers as the federal government’s New Vehicle Emissions Standard (NVES) kicks off from January 1, 2025.

This means most carmakers need to sell more electric cars to offset the sales of their petrol and diesel models. Car brands can carry credits over to the next year if EVs sales are greater than needed to offset other vehicles.

Kia Australia boss, Damien Meredith, said it's a tough situation.

“I’ve said it, everyone said it: it’s a struggle… it’s a tough situation,” said Meredith.

“But there’s variables in play where we have to sell more EVs, that’s a fact of life with NVES. 

"We’ve basically got to sell double what we’re doing at the moment to meet our requirement for NVES. That’s our strategy, that’s our plan, that’s our mix of sales.

“The legislation takes effect the first of January, the penalties take effect the first of July and that’s what we’re playing with. In between that there is a federal election. Those variables might flip 180 degrees, who knows?,” he said.

“[We’ve] definitely reached the early adopter limit, now we are into the guts of the market.”

The brand is putting its hopes on the recently launched EV5 mid-size electric SUV that is a direct competitor to the best selling EV in the nation, the Tesla Model Y.

Kia’s marketing chief, Dean Norbiato, said the EV5 has generated huge interest for the brand.

Meredith indicated the brand was expecting about 400 sales of EV5 a month for 2025.

Kia Australia Chief Operating Officer, Dennis Piccoli, said the brand was planning on ending 2025 in a NVES credit situation thanks to growth in EV sales and improved hybrid offerings.

“What you’ll see through '25 is more variants of hybrid and plug-in hybrid, we’ll reach down deeper into the variant list of Sorento, Sportage and Carnival,” said Piccoli.

“We think we can do about 10,000 odd EVs. We think EV5 will be the number one seller for EVs for us followed by EV3.

“So we think we’ll be around 10,000 to 11,000 all going well, and we think in the hybrid space there will be a similar number. And that’ll get us out through 2025, in theory, in a credit situation,” he said.

Sales of electric cars are up slightly this year at about seven per cent through the first 11 months of the year. 

Tesla, by far the biggest seller of electric cars, sales have dropped 20 per cent, which is the main driver for the sluggish growth.

The tougher market isn’t a concern for Kia as the brand is buoyant it can double its sales of EVs next year with its new line-up. Kia will bring the electric EV3 compact SUV and EV4 small car to join the mid-size EV5 SUV, EV6 liftback and EV9 seven-seat SUV in what will be one of the broadest ranges of electric cars in Australia.