Kandi Electric Vehicles
Kandi Technologies, producer of go-carts, electric and all-terrain vehicles, has entered into a 50:50 joint venture with China‘s largest Automotive group, Geely to produce electric vehicles for the Chinese mainland. The Geely subsidiary, Shanghai Maple was the automotive giant’s signatory to the joint venture. The new company called Zhejiang Kandi Electric Vehicles Investment had initial registered capital of $160 million. The first phase of its EV plant, completed in 2013 and situated in the Changxing Economic DevelopmentZone, Zhejiang Province produces around 100,000 per annum. The company modeled a CarShare program after the largest bike share program in the world, which started in the city of Hangzhou. In 2012 Kandi Technologies signed an agreement with the city of Hangzhou for the supply of 20,000 electric vehicles. Modeled on a vending machine concept, the program allows clients to lease a car on a per hour, week, month or long lease of between 1 and three years. The lease includes maintenance, insurance, and even electricity. Vehicles are returned to the garage (vending machine) to swap out empty batteries full ones. The company is also a big player in the Neighbourhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) market with its Coco model. Other models in development include an SUV, MPV, the K13, K18, and K20. |
Kandi Electric Car Strategy in the news
2020 Week 31 Kandi finally launch two EVs in America
In 2018 Kandi partnered with SC Autosports to launch the K22 and EX3 in the USA. The Chinese KANDI, which is also listed on the Nasdaq (NASD: KNDI) acquired in SC Autosports in 2018 as Kandi America, but to date have not delivered on initially planned K22 and EX3 launch. This week Kandi America announced that it would hold a virtual event on the 18th of August to launch two models in the USA, initially focusing on the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
The two models that will be launched on the 18th of August are the K23 MPV and K27 city car, which will be the cheapest EV in the USA, priced at $12,999 after incentives. The K23 MPV is priced at $22,499 after federal tax credits and have an estimated range of 180 miles (288km), while the K27 with its 17.69kWh battery can achieve a 100 miles (160km). The vehicles are available pre-launch for a refundable deposit of only $100. Interestingly enough Kandi sold a K27 model in China in 2018, which looks vastly different than the one now introduced to the US market.
Kandi‘s fortunes lagged after being an initial top seller in the Chinese small EV segment in 2017. As a reflection of its performance, the company’s share price has been struggling until now but jumped over 300% on the announcement.
The jump in Kandi’s share price is another testament to investors’ craziness rushing head-on into anything EV related. It is yet to be seen how US consumers’ biasses towards range anxiety, Chinese cars, and their safety aspects will play out for Kandi. It is a proper Pig market out there as greed rather than sensibility prevails, similar to the rush and subsequent flight from Nikola, a company that has yet to produce a production vehicle.
Week 4 2019 Kandi to deliver 300,000 EVs for ridesharing
The NASDAQ listed Kandi
Technologies announced that they had secured an agreement to provide
300,000 EVs to an ‘Online Ride-sharing Alliance’ in Hangzhou, the
company’s hometown. Kandi which last week received approval from the
municipality of Jiangsu to develop a new 50,000 unit EV plant in the
City will deliver the 300,000 units over the next five years. The
opportunity for Kandi arose out of the current chaos in the three
million strong ride-hailing market, where 90% of the cars operate
illegally. To operate as a driver for a ridesharing company you need a
drivers license and an additional license to transport passengers.
Furthermore, once you register your car in the ridesharing network, the
insurance premium escalates with RMB10,000, which coupled with the
requirement of an additional license leads to a 90% non-compliance rate
currently. The benefit for authorities is that electric cars by Kandi
can be switched off if not compliant.
Week 35 2018 Kandi to sell K22 and EX3 models in USA
Kandi Technologies Group unveiled its two-seater K22 and compact SUV the EX3
in Dallas Texas as it enters the US market. In a press release via
NASDAQ on which Kandi is listed Kandi announced that it would sell the
two models in the USA
via its wholly owned subsidiary SC Autosports, LLC – previously
Sportsman Country the ATV distributor. Kandi has its roots in lowcost
neighborhood electric vehicles, but according to Kandi the K22 and EX3
have undergone several driving performance upgrades from the Chinese
models, to accommodate the needs of the U.S. market. The newer models’
performance, battery life, and driving experience have been upgraded to
strengthen their presence in the U.S. market. Pricing and specifications
for the US models were not released, but a price point of below $20,000
before subsidy for the K22 subcompact was mentioned in various
publications. It will be interesting to see how the Kandi EVs fair in
the USA where there has been few subcompact EVs available as opposed to
Europe and China. Furthermore, how will the US consumer deal with the
stigma around quality and safety of Chinese auto’s? Kandi’s sales in China has been lackluster in 2017/2018 as the company crashed out of the Top 10 EV brands to the 24th position.
Top 5 EV News Week 29 2020
Top 5 EV News Week 29 2020: Two worlds – Chinese EV investor hardship vs USA EV Investor frenzy. Nissan Ariya, Workhorse C1000 and Buick Velite 7.
Top 5 EV News Week 28 2020
Top 5 EV News Week 28 2020: It has been a busy week in the EV market. I look at nine new models from this week.
Top 5 EV News Week 27 2020
In this week’s Top 5 EV news | BYD launch Tang in Europe | Volta Electric Truck pilot | Byton bites the dust