Global car executives will continue to place electric vehicles at the centre of their European product strategy after Brussels granted only “very small flexibility” in its revision of the 2035 petrol ban.
“We are on a transition to EVs,” Sjoerd Knipping, chief operating officer of Kia Europe, told the FT in an interview.
The changes in the EU’s regulations “could give us a bit more flexibility here and there, but it doesn’t mean that we are going to turn over our strategy from one day to the next”, he said at the Brussels Motor Show, where the South Korean carmaker unveiled its cheapest and smallest electric car, expected to be priced at less than €30,000.