EVs will kill off SUVs, says Citroën CEO: Inform that to Jeep?

SUVs are supplanting conventional sedans, hatchbacks, and wagons in gross sales, however the head of Citroën believes EVs might reverse that pattern.

“The world of SUVs is finished,” Citroën CEO Vincent Cobée mentioned in a latest interview with Auto Express (by way of InsideEVs). That is a daring prediction contemplating that SUVs have accounted for 50% of all new automotive registrations in Citroën’s house European marketplace for the previous few years.

But the necessity to maximize vary at an affordable value might trigger a change in automaker’s product-planning habits, Cobée argues, noting that the normal SUV form is not aerodynamically optimum.

2022 Citroen C5 X

Any vary loss from elevated aerodynamic drag may very well be counteracted by a bigger battery pack. However that provides weight and value, and so will not be a viable answer in the long run, Cobée famous, including that the general public notion of SUVs as wasteful might finally curtail their attraction.

Jeep, a cousin of Citroën below the Stellantis household tree, does not appear to assume that to be the case, because it’s releasing its Avenger for Europe, whereas a rugged Recon EV is on the way in which for the U.S., amongst others. In actual fact your entire Jeep model—considered one of Stellantis’ most worthwhile—is dependent upon them.

Jeep Avenger

And in some markets, just like the U.S., constructing a whole lot of mild vans could also be a part of a technique to assist “run sooner than rules,” as Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares not too long ago put it to Inexperienced Automobile Stories.

That begs the query of what a continued predominance of SUVs in an EV period would imply for general emissions reductions.

A 2021 report confirmed that the emissions advantages of any shift towards EVs was canceled out by the market’s persistent shift to SUVs. Within the U.S., the Division of Power has began utilizing SUVs as a benchmark for automobile comparability, underscoring that smaller SUVs are higher for the surroundings.