Articles by Stephen Ottley

Sometimes car companies just get it wrong.Despite all the market research, focus groups, design studies and marketing programs, some cars just don’t sell. Sometimes it’s a case of being the right car at the wrong time, arriving ahead of the curve or after the boom. We looked at that recently with the Holden Volt, a plug-in hybrid that arrived too soon (and for too much money) to be successful, even if the concept was right.But then there are some cars that are just a complete miss, arriving as an undesirable product. They are, to be blunt, the wrong car at the wrong time.Here are some examples of what happens when carmakers get it wrong.The decision to end local manufacturing for Holden cannot have been an easy one for General Motors management, but it was probably an inevitable one. The decision they did not have to make was to destroy the brand equity, not to mention the national pride and love, in the Commodore badge.While most of the cars on this list are obviously bad choices with the benefit of hindsight, the ZB Commodore was an obviously bad choice at the time. It was meant to soften the blow of the departure of the brilliant and beloved VF Commodore, but it only served to rub salt into the wounds.To the nice folks at Opel, GM’s German division, who developed the car (which was known as the Insignia in Europe) this was like having your glass of beer taken away and replaced with water from a muddy puddle with ‘beer’ written on the glass.It wasn’t a ‘Commodore’ in any way, shape or form, despite what Holden PR tried to spin at the time. Holden and GM should have followed the example Ford set with the Falcon and retired the name with dignity rather than slapping it on a sub-par import.Sometimes in life you’re faced with a 50-50 decision to make and the difference it makes in the long run can be enormous, or even catastrophic. That’s the case with Ford Australia and the Territory Turbo.The Territory was an inspired decision, a great example of delivering the right car at the right time. Ford managed to get in on the SUV craze just as it started to rise in the early 2000s, offering buyers who were starting to look for something taller than a Falcon an in-house alternative.The problem was, in 2006 they decided to expand the line-up and made the wrong call on that 50-50 decision. Legend has it that Ford Australia only had the funds to develop a Territory Turbo OR a Territory diesel, but not both at the same time.In the words of the Knight at the end of that Indiana Jones movie: “They chose poorly.”Thankfully they didn’t shrivel up and die in an instant, like the Indiana Jones’ nemesis, but it was a decision that didn’t help the future of Ford’s local models.By the time the Territory diesel did arrive in 2011, along with a facelift, Ford had lost too much ground to imported rivals and by the end of 2016, the Territory was done. While Ford’s decision to add the turbocharged ‘Barra’ engine to the Territory seemed logical, given the high demand for that engine in the Falcon XR6 Turbo, it highlighted the difference between the Falcon and Territory buyer.In the same way a diesel Falcon would have been a terrible idea in 2006, so too did the Territory Turbo prove a costly mistake.The Evoque was a brilliant addition to Range Rovers’ line-up, another demonstration of reading the market to perfection and adding a smaller model when that’s what luxury SUV customers were looking for.Unfortunately, the Evoque Convertible was as bad an idea as the Evoque was a good one. And this was one of those ideas that you really could tell wasn’t brilliant at the time.Sure, the SUV market was rapidly changing at that point and there were some unlikely sales hits, namely Audi’s turbo-diesel SQ5. If a diesel SUV can be a popular performance car, surely a convertible would be appealing, right?Wrong. Very, very wrong.Introduced in mid-2016, the final Evoque drop-top rolled off the production line in 2018. A footnote in the history of Range Rover, and one they’d probably like to forget.As Mazda prepares to launch its second and third EVs, the sharply-priced 6e and CX-6e, it can be easy to forget its first attempt. And they might prefer you did.The MX-30 was a bolder-than-average design, with ‘suicide doors’ that were actually more like ‘choke the front seat occupants if you opened the rear doors’, but it fit nicely into the popular Mazda line-up.The problem was what was powering the MX-30. For starters, Mazda hedged its bets, offering its much-hyped EV with a mild-hybrid powertrain option, just to confuse the issue. Which was needed because the EV only had a small battery and a theoretical driving range of only 200km, but a big price tag of over $66k.While EV sales were starting to increase at this point, so seemingly the time was right, Mazda was behind the times in terms of both capability and cost. It was destined to fail and that’s what it did, quietly pulled from sale after only three years.The American brand’s attempt to crack the lucrative ute (or ‘truck’ if you’re American) market was over before it began. On the one hand you have to give credit to Tesla for not trying to take on Ford, Chevrolet and Ram head on. But, on the other hand, what the heck were they thinking?The Cybertruck was always going to be a niche offering, with Tesla frontman Elon Musk's 250,000 annual sales claim being wildly optimistic (to put it very delicately). As the flop of the F-150 Lightning demonstrated, there is simply not a market for electric utes, whether they look like a traditional ute or something created by the work experience kid after a lot of caffeine.Where Musk and the rest of Tesla management thought they’d find 250,000 people who wanted to look like they just drove out of a 1990s computer game remains a mystery to equal the lost city of Atlantis.Electric utes may seem like a good idea, but their time has simply not come year, but certainly the Cybertruck is not what people want.

Have high fuel prices saved Tesla?The American electric brand has been in a sales decline in recent times, with a nearly 25 per cent drop in 2025 despite electric vehicle sales remaining steady overall. But the latest sales data, which includes March when petrol prices spiked, shows a major improvement for Tesla.The Model Y, which recorded only a 4.6 per cent sales increase in ‘25 despite the arrival of a major update, was the third best-selling vehicle in March. It finished behind only the ever-popular Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux, making it not only the best-selling EV (almost doubling the next best BYD Sealion 7's sales) but the best-selling passenger vehicle.A total of 2818 Model Y buyers were found in March, a massive 63.4 per cent increase on March ‘25 and nearly double what the brand had averaged in the first two months of ‘26.The rise in fuel costs has seen a massive spike in EV interest over the past month. Searches on CarsGuide for EVs rose 230 per cent since petrol prices spiked, while Autotrader is reporting a 631 per cent jump in people searching for a new EV to buy.Tesla was clearly one of the best-placed brands to cash in on this sudden surge in interest. Despite a rocky time in recent years, the brand is still synonymous with EVs and would likely be on the consideration list for anyone looking to move away from an internal combustion engine vehicle for the first time.The challenge for Tesla remains the same — maintaining interest in what is a relatively static line-up. The brand introduced a six-seat variant of the Model Y, and that may have also contributed to the renewed interest in the SUV, but it is otherwise unchanged since its 2025 facelift.The Model 3 mid-size sedan didn’t enjoy a sales boost like its stablemate, with only 667 sales in March, a 33 per cent decline on the same period last year. So clearly the interest remains, unsurprisingly with the SUV variant.It should also be noted Tesla sales have historically varied month-to-month due to delivery schedules, with orders carrying over from previous months as new owners await the arrival of their new car from the Chinese factories.Tesla will clearly be hoping this renewed interest in EVs remains high when the conflict in the Middle East has stopped and oil prices potentially drop. Economists have warned that even a sudden stop to the conflict won’t instantly solve the bottlenecks in the global supply chain and it could take months for oil prices (and therefore fuel prices) to start to decline to the levels seen earlier this year.Until then, Tesla will remain in the box seat to take advantage of motorists looking to ditch petrol and diesel power in favour of going electric. Seeing how the Model Y fares in the April sales charts will be very telling for how the brand’s 2026 sales fortunes will pan out…

It was a day long expected, but it still hit with a bang.A Chinese car maker has out-sold almost every other car brand in Australia.BYD sold the third most vehicles in March, behind only the mighty Toyota and a surging Kia. That means a Chinese brand out-sold big names including Ford, Mazda, Hyundai and Mitsubishi.But BYD wasn’t the only Chinese brand in the top 10 either. In the first three months of 2026, BYD, GWM, Chery and MG are all firmly locked into the best-selling brands. Whatever your feelings on the influx of Chinese brands in recent years, it is clear Australian customers are buying them and they have cemented a place not only in the market, but at its upper echelons.The real question though, is can BYD sustain this success? Was March just a flash in the pan or was it the start of a genuine shake-up of the established order at the top of the sales charts?The initial sentiment around the Chinese industry was that it was flooding the market with cheap, small cars, and there was certainly a lot of truth to that. The MG3 and MG ZS were both big-sellers with small price tags, so it wasn’t surprising to see MG make an impact so early. But if you look at how BYD has found sales volume in Australia, especially since taking direct control of the local operation from original importers EV Direct, it is a very different story.BYD’s two biggest sellers in March were the Sealion 7 (1970 sales) and the Shark 6 (1314), neither could be accurately described as ‘cheap and cheerful’ small cars. Are they price competitive? Definitely, but neither is dramatically cheaper than their direct rivals, certainly not in the case of the Sealion 7.The Sealion 7 is hardly a budget-busting small car, it’s a mid-size, all-electric SUV that is priced from $54,990 (plus on-road costs). That’s competitive against its competitors, but not significantly enough to justify its sales volume alone. In other words, the Sealion 7 is one of the most popular mid-size SUVs in the country (electric or otherwise) because buyers are attracted to it for more than simply the price.The same goes for the Shark 6, which has managed to succeed seemingly in spite of its seemingly unorthodox take on a modern dual-cab. BYD made a brave choice to enter Australia’s ute market with a petrol-powered plug-in hybrid offering, but it may have been precisely the right ute at the right time.Buyers are seemingly happy to try something different and between the tax breaks and the rising cost of diesel, it’s not unsurprising that the Shark 6 has been a sales hit. So much so that it is firmly ensconced as the fourth most-popular 4x4 ute on a regular basis, behind only the Ford Ranger, Toyota HiLux and Isuzu D-Max.But does this mean BYD’s March success is sustainable? Well, certainly there are no indications that the Sealion 7 or Shark 6 will suffer a sales collapse (but stranger things have happened). While there is likely to be some ebb and flow in the sales charts this year and BYD may slip up and down the order, there are a number of indicators that the brand could sustain a top five, or even a top three, sales position long-term.And it could be thanks to the initial expectations of the Chinese market - cheap, small cars. BYD has only launched the new Atto 1 and Atto 2 hatchbacks in the final months of 2025, so they are still finding a market in Australia.But with the high cost of petrol leading to a spike in electric vehicle interest, the thought of a city-friendly small car that never requires a visit to the service station could become a popular choice for Australian drivers.Add to that the addition of the Sealion 5 and Sealion 8, which naturally sandwich the Sealions 6 and 7, as well as the talk of an expanding Shark 6 line-up and there is every chance BYD will have management at the likes of Ford, Mazda, Kia and even Toyota starting to feel concerned about the long-term outlook.

Volvo has a history of making boxy, unexciting sedans - the ES90 does not follow that path. This all-new electric sedan (or liftback, technically) is the SUV alternative for those willing to think outside the box. We drive the new-for-2026 ES90 to tell you about its performance, range, value, design and practicality.

Plug-in hybrids are here to stay. That’s the opinion of Skoda Australia director Lucie Kuhn, who believes that while plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) may be a so-called ‘bridging technology’ towards fully-electric cars, the ‘bridge’ could last at least a decade.PHEV sales have risen sharply in recent years, making a comeback after many brands that previously offered the technology abandoned it in favour of a focus on fully-electric vehicles (EVs). But PHEVs, which use an internal combustion engine to support an electric powertrain, have been given a second chance thanks to longer electric-only driving range and a push from Chinese brands, such as BYD and Chery, that have made them more affordable.Under Kuhn’s leadership, Skoda Australia has introduced the Kodiaq PHEV with plans for the Superb PHEV wagon to follow soon. She believes this is the right time to introduce PHEV options, primarily because of the slow uptake of EVs in Australia.“Yes, I think so, and we actually had this observation also from Europe, where time has shown that the transformation hasn’t proceeded as fast as we all expected. And it's actually the same situation we observe here also in Australia,” Kuhn said.“Especially in a country with some relatively high geographical distances, I think we still will have a relatively big portion of customers still not being fully ready to go on their fully electric journey and rather go for some interim solution, a kind of solution that provides them a confidence that they can drive the car on a daily basis, on an electric mode, and when they go a little bit more further for some holidays or longer trips, then they can simply switch on the combustion engine and keep going.”Skoda has managed to, unintentionally, coincide the launch of the Kodiaq PHEV perfectly with a sudden spike in fuel prices, further enhancing the appeal of the large SUV that can drive up to 110km on battery and return a claimed fuel economy of just 1.9L/100km.But Kuhn still believes there is a barrier for buyers to overcome with EVs, and the introduction of more PHEVs will help bridge the gap between pure internal combustion engine options and the electric future. Exactly how long the bridge will be is unclear, but Kuhn is confident it won’t be a short-term solution. Instead she said it could last a decade or longer, assuming the Federal Government remains supportive of the technology.“ I think it's first a mental barrier, to overcome this and change this way of thinking and go fully electric. But it might also be driven legally. So the legislation is also something what will decide finally if the PHEV will be a long term technology,” Kuhn said.“Right now we consider it as a bridging technology, but we are speaking a long bridge, like 10 years at least. This is how long it will be minimally. But of course if at some point the government says I don't know, like Europe said, from 2035, no more combustion engines at all, or actually nothing that produces some pollution, then of course it's logically the end of the PHEV technology as well. But currently we don't have this, let's say, kind of global statement, it's currently only in Europe, but also Europe might reconsider, this kind of decision and maybe even bring it a little bit more forward there. The time will show, but the bridge in Australia is really long, at least 10 years.”Currently PHEV models generate credits for car makers under the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard and will continue to do so for another five years. Whether the government chooses to extend that stance will ultimately determine the viability of PHEVs in the Australian market.

MG already had an MG4 electric hatchback, but at a moment in time when fuel prices are soaring and demand for electric vehicles is at an all-time high, the Chinese brand is introducing a second. The MG4 Urban is an all-new small car that shares little in common with its namesake. We test drive this new small electric car to see how it performs in terms of value, space and performance.

With all due respect to GAC and its plans for a new dual-cab ute — please don’t. Same goes for Hyundai, which has been talking up its plans for a ute in recent months, and Chery that has a yet-to-be-named new ute incoming. We have enough utes in this country.That might sound like a ‘click-bait, hot take’ (and it partially is) but it’s also very much true. The ute market in Australia is getting over-crowded and new additions will make it even more densely packed.Don’t take my word for it, Sean Hanley, the former sales and marketing boss of Toyota has been saying we’ve reached ‘peak ute’ for more than a year. Coming from a man who oversaw the enduring sales success of the HiLux and introduced the Tundra to Australia, that’s a notable position to take. Speaking in January 2025, Hanley said he wasn’t confident that more utes arriving would equal more sales overall.“I’m not necessarily sharing a view that it's going to grow astronomically because of the new entrants,” he said. “It may, I could be wrong, but it’ll be interesting to watch.“Looking towards the future, we already know that the number of ute models available to Australian buyers will expand rapidly. “They’ll be competing for an overall ute market that is likely to remain steady, which suggests that the average sales per model will come down as a result.”That hypothesis was proved correct when the 2025 sales were tallied. The ute segment grew only 2.7 per cent between 2024 and ‘25, despite 12 new entrants from several new brands — including Kia, BYD, MG, Foton and GWM.Go back five years and look at the difference between 2021 and ‘25 and the idea of hitting ‘peak ute’ comes into even greater focus. In that span there was 5.9 per cent sales growth but a 41 per cent increase in the available number of models. Hanley followed up his January comments with more at the launch of the new HiLux late in 2025.“So when I say the ute market's peaked, what I mean is that, well, exactly that, it's peaked. But it's still a significant market, and it will be for the future,” he told CarsGuide."But I think that whole ute market's going to be crazy for the next couple of years. So in the end it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what customers think.”Nissan Oceania Managing Director Andrew Humberstone, seemingly along with GAC and Hyundai management, believes the contrary and the ute market has increased volume in its future.“I don't want to really talk specifically about numbers, but we see certainly an increase in volume,” he told CarsGuide in December ‘25.While BYD has made strong in-roads into the ute market with the Shark 6, cementing itself as a top five selling dual-cab, the reality for most of these new players is they are attracting relatively small volumes.Kia, which set a public goal of 10,000 sales by the end of ‘25 managed less than half of that (4196), while despite a competitive price and bigger-than-average size, the MG U9 managed only 472 sales in the few months it was on sale. Foton split 177 sales between its Tunland V7 and V9 since they hit the market in late ‘25.But even some models that were on sale for the full year in 2025 fared poorly. The Jeep Gladiator found just 332 buyers, while the Isuzu D-Max, Mitsubishi Triton, Nissan Navara and Volkswagen Amarok all experienced sales drops.Of course, this story won’t stop the new utes from GAC, Hyundai and Chery coming, nor any other brand that wants to join in, but the reality is none are likely to dramatically increase the size of the overall ute market. Instead, the share of the market will just get divided up into smaller and smaller pieces.In the end, natural selection will play its part and the models that don’t sell will simply be overlooked by buyers and are likely to disappear eventually. One way or another, Australia will not have an endlessly growing number of utes to choose from.

Plug-in hybrids are all the rage at the moment. Sales of vehicles fitted with the fuel-saving technology spiked more than 130 per cent in 2025 and sales were already up more than 60 per cent in the first two months of 2026, before fuel prices started to soar.One company was well ahead of the curve on the plug-in hybrid hype, but unfortunately so far ahead its ground-breaking fizzled before it could take off.That brand? Holden.In 2012 it arrived with a lot of fanfare and hope of appealing to those who still loved a sedan but wanted something more fuel-efficient than the VE Commodore of the day. The Volt promised that, with its 1.4-litre petrol engine used exclusively to charge the batteries, never actually drive the wheels directly.At the time, Holden claimed up to 80km of driving on the batteries before the motor would kick-in, which was also ahead of the curve. There were even reports from the US, where it was developed and sold as the Chevrolet Volt, that owners who recharged regularly wouldn’t even use a full tank of petrol in a year.In theory then, it should have been a popular choice for Australian customers, as petrol prices had started to creep up and customers were looking for more efficient vehicles. As we wrote last week, Holden was pushing to make E85 and LPG a more popular option in the Commodore, but ultimately that fell flat too.The problem for the Volt was it cost $59,990, more than double what the similar-sized Holden Cruze would set you back. The argument at the time was that this cost would be absorbed by the so-called early adopters, the kind of people that spent $10,000 on the early flat-screen televisions (yes, young people, TVs used to not be flat). Whether there simply weren’t enough early adopters or because people were just too reluctant to spend $60k on a car with a Holden badge, sales of the Volt were slow before almost trickling to a halt.At the time, electric vehicles (EVs) were only just arriving and sold in incredibly small numbers. In 2012 just 253 EVs were sold in Australia, so Holden was facing a major challenge in convincing buyers to try this in-between technology no-one else was really selling.But in hindsight, if Australians had embraced PHEVs back in the 2010s, what might the new car market look like today? PHEVs had a few false starts after the Volt was pulled from sale in 2015, but in the last three years it has surged back into relevancy and looks set to continue to grow in the coming years as the government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard incentivises car makers to promote PHEVs and EVs. As 2026 plays out, the growth of PHEVs will be worth watching to see if they continue to grow in popularity even if fuel prices decline to pre-Middle East conflict levels. The pre-’26 growth suggests Australians are ready and willing to make the switch to this technology, a decade after Holden gave up on it.Holden failed in Australia because it didn’t provide the cars we wanted. Or at least that’s what we’ve been telling ourselves. Sure, the Commodore declined as the family car of choice, but Holden tried everything it could to adapt to the changing demands of the local market, only to find itself with the right car at the wrong time.

They cost too much. They cause range anxiety. There aren’t enough chargers.There is still a lot of negativity and anxiety around electric vehicles (EVs) and it has kept sales at approximately 10 per cent of the market for several years now. There have been attempts to increase sales of EVs from both the car makers and governments around the country, but regardless the sales have always hit that invisible 10 per cent cap, more or less.But that could be about to change. In fact, if it doesn’t change in the very near-future, we may be waiting a decade or longer before EVs truly become mainstream.Put simply, if EVs are to take a leap forward in terms of sales, it’s now or never (or at least, now or in the distant future).That’s because interest in EVs (and hybrids) have never been higher as fuel prices have spiked since the US and Israel began the conflict with Iran, which has had a major impact on the price of oil and the global supply chain.It has also raised the questions of Australia’s fuel security, with local refineries not currently capable of producing fuel to the same standards as the fuel we import.Geo-politics aside, Australian motorists are simply feeling the financial pain at the pump with unleaded over $2.50 per litre in much of Australia and diesel above $3 per litre and running low in supply in many areas.Searches on CarsGuide classifieds for EVs rose 230 per cent since petrol prices spiked, while searches for hybrids are up a whopping 943 per cent. Autotrader is reporting a 631 per cent jump in people searching for a new EV to buy, with a 221 per cent increase in those looking for a hybrid.Obviously these search results won’t translate to a one-for-one sale increase, but the next few months will be telling for how much Australians are willing to embrace EVs to save at the pump.Skoda happened to launch more-affordable variants of its Enyaq and Elroq EVs in mid-March, which is seemingly perfectly timed to take advantage of the current trouble times. But Skoda Australia director, Lucie Kuhn, cautioned about getting too excited too quickly on a potential dramatic sales shift towards EVs.“Maybe short term, if you're speaking about the conflict in the Middle East, of course it triggers the customers if they shouldn't start considering an electric vehicle as their future car,” she said.“If increased interest will last to such an extent, I think it depends how long the crisis will take.“But already before it has happened, we observed that out of this, in the market 65-70 per cent of customers are still driving combustion .I think already 70 per cent out of them consider, for the next purchase, to start thinking about the electric vehicle.“It doesn't mean that they will necessarily buy an electric vehicle, but they give it a serious thought and we observe that. Many customers in spite maybe in the end go for a combustion engine or maybe for the PHEV as an interim step, they at least consider having and purchasing an EV.” But what this fuel crisis may do, is get those people who have considered an EV or hybrid previously but hesitated because of the above-mentioned concerns about price, charging or range anxiety.The reality is EVs are now on-par, or in some cases cheaper, than petrol or diesel models. For example, the new MG4 Urban EV is cheaper than the similar-sized Toyota Corolla Hybrid. That doesn’t mean all EVs are cheaper than petrol or diesel equivalents, but the criticism that EVs are for “snobs that live in the eastern suburbs”, as NSW Premier Chris Minns said recently, is simply not true.Range anxiety feels like a hangover from the earlier EVs, which had less than 200km of range and needed regular charging. Most EVs on sale today are capable of 300km or more, which means a weekly charge is most likely what’s required for the majority of Australian motorists.While the concerns over the lack of public charging infrastructure is also overblown in the minds of many, with more than 1250 spread across the nation. Are there as many EV chargers as petrol bowsers? Of course not, but given the current rate of EV sales growth, the public network is growing accordingly.If you live in an urban area, there is likely to be several public chargers available, assuming you don’t have off-street parking so you can’t simply charge at home (which many Australians are capable of doing). So if you look beyond the anti-EV sentiment and put your prejudices aside, the reality of actually owning an EV is starting to look more and more appealing. They are increasingly cost-effective and help Australia wean itself off foreign oil dependency, so it’s a win-win in many respects.No, they still aren’t for every or every market (electric utes are likely to remain as popular as a steak at a vegan restaurant) but for many, namely those in urban areas, now might be the ideal time to make the switch. Whether they will or not remains to be seen.Fuel prices began to increase at the very end of February and March sales date won’t be available until after the Easter long weekend. Even so, March figures aren’t likely to show the full extent of the potential switch to EVs and hybrids. Instead, we will have to watch closely in the coming months to see if the current crisis has a significant and lasting impact on the popularity of EVs in Australia.

Skoda has seemingly done the impossible - launch a European-built electric vehicle (EV) for less than its Chinese-made rivals.The newly-launched Skoda Elroq Select 60 is priced from $49,990 drive-away, dramatically under-cutting its rivals from established brands like Hyundai, Kia and Toyota. The smaller Hyundai Kona is priced from $54,000 (plus on-road costs) while the similar-sized, but Chinese-built, Hyundai Elexio is priced from $59,990 drive-away. Even the Toyota bZ4X starts at $55,990.Where the Elroq really stands out is when you compare it to its competition from China. The  Geely EX5 starts from just $40,990 and the Leapmotor C10 costs $45,888 but the more popular BYD Sealion 7 starts at $54,990 and the Chinese-made Tesla Model Y is priced from $58,900, with both of those prices excluding on-road costs, further widening the gap between the Elroq.So how did Skoda make the Elroq so cheap? Lucie Kuhn, Skoda Australia director, was adamant that the Elroq price is not subsidized from head office, as she suggests many Chinese models are. It's continuous work,” Kuhn said. “Of course the factory develops also, in terms of purchasing strategies, developing better materials. Maybe the technologies are also improving and you have some scaling cost opportunities. So it's also a matter of negotiations with our head office to get a price that is positive in the Australian market. Because what is it good for to price the car with a high price and sell few units, it's good for nothing.”Instead, it is part of a long-term play from Skoda, and parent company Volkswagen Group, to gradually increase its share of the EV market by bringing down prices to become more competitive.“ So our strategy from the very beginning was to firmly integrate the electric portfolio into our range and to make it a relevant part,” she said.Adding: “It's not necessarily the cheapest of the cheapest, but it was never the purpose. It was to create a model that provides European values like safety, high European production standards, social responsibility and this kind of stuff, for a really good price. That positively resonates with the customer and develops some real interest there in the market.”However, there is still a huge sales chasm between the Elroq and its Chinese rivals in terms of sales. Skoda, without the price-led Select 60 variant, sold just 253 Elroq last year, compared to 13,410 BYD Sealion 7, 3944 Geely EX5 and even 579 Leapmotor C10.Kuhn knows the addition of the more-affordable variant will not suddenly rocket the Elroq up the sales order, but is designed to set the brand up for long-term, sustainable growth.“I think it is not the purpose to go with Chinese pricing,” Kuhn said. “I think we have other values to offer compared to them and have other benefits maybe than the Chinese brands. We don't know what will happen with the Chinese pricing in the future because the Chinese business is currently quite heavily subsidized there from the government to, let's say speed up and accelerate the electromobility.“Taking it as a kind of benchmark for future pricing of all the other competitors is not the way we really want it to go. I think the price for a European product, considering the fact that the car has a seven year warranty and service pack, I would say it's really good.”