Are you ready for the $40K Picanto? New cars are about to get a lot more expensive as Kia says EVs mean the end of cars under $20k.

Kia says the rise in electrification will mean the end of cars under $20.

Kia says the rise of electric vehicles in Australia effectively means the end of cars under $20K, noting that brand-wide electrification could see the cheapest models like the Picanto and Cerato cost roughly $40K.

The Picanto is currently Australia's highest budget Kia model, with more than 6500 of them finding their homes last year. It costs about 17 thousand dollars with a tiny gasoline engine. But an electric car the size of a Picanto? That, according to Kia, will be a very different story.

"I don't think you're going to see an electric car the size of a $20,000 Picanto," says Kia Australia COO Damien Meredith. “But you can see a $35,000 to $40,000 Picanto-sized electric car.”

Thus, electrification at a cost of $35 would add about $20 to a manhole the size of a city. Which, according to Kia, will essentially become the new normal in our future of electric vehicles.

This is a similar scenario that has already been seen with MG, where the brand's ZST SUV costs around $25K for the most affordable model (or around $23K for the base ZS model). However, the ZS EV starts at $45.

Asked if electrification meant the end of the sub-$20k Kia in Australia, Mr Meredith replied, "I think so," before adding that Chinese manufacturers could eventually fill the void.

“I think there will be a lot of competition in this regard because I think a lot of Chinese manufacturers will move, and that’s right and that’s fantastic,” he said.

"If we have a desire to be in the area, we will have to wait and see."

However, Mr. Meredith had previously promised that the brand's gasoline fleet was not yet up to date.

“Picanto is not going anywhere. We're going to keep selling the Picanto," he said recently. Cars Guide.

Speaking at the launch of the Kia EV6, which starts at $67,990 for the AIR model, Mr. Meredith also said that demand for electric vehicles in Australia will accelerate in the coming years, predicting that by 50 percent of the new car market will be electrified. by the year 2030.

“It’s not about, it’s about when electric vehicles will dominate the world,” he said. "The next five years are going to be very exciting."