Citroen CEO Vincent Cobée thinks that SUV models do not have a body type suitable for the electric vehicle market and therefore will lose their popularity. Here are the details:
The automotive world has been awash with SUV fashion in recent years. When the demand was in this direction, manufacturers started to focus on SUV models. But the tide is turning, according to Citroen CEO Vincent Cobée.
Vincent Cobée believes electric vehicles will reduce the popularity of SUVs. According to Cobée, the key factor here is that these vehicles are less aerodynamically unsuitable for the electric vehicle market than their sedan counterparts. Range is one of the most fundamental issues in choosing electric vehicles, and aerodynamics is one of the most important features for range.
Cobée explains his opinion on this subject with these words: “If the aerodynamics are bad in battery electric vehicles, the penalty for this is big in terms of range. You can lose 50 kilometers between good and bad aerodynamics. If the vehicles being compared are sedans and SUVs, we can easily talk about 60/70/80 kilometers in terms of loss. “
According to the Citroen base manager, this disadvantage of electric SUVs can be avoided with larger batteries, but this is not sustainable as it will increase weight. Cobée reminded that France plans to impose a tax on weight in this regard, “The weight of a car was 700 kilograms in the 70s. Today, an average car weighs 1300 kg. Tomorrow this value will be 2 tons. So it’s the same thing just for the sake of being ‘green’. We will be using three times as many resources for this purpose,” he said.
At this point, Citroen came up with an upgraded sedan style model such as the Citroen e-C4X, which was recently launched in Turkey, rather than electric SUVs. Cobée acknowledges that such a move against the current SUV fashion is risky, but argues that failing to change tactics early can create even bigger problems.
