New Year's Eve Event in New York, Starting Point for Korean Electric Vehicle Boom? [Correspondent Diary]

New York City's 'Boldrop' Event Sponsored by Kia Electric Vehicles
Heavy Rain Across New York on New Year's Day 2022... Demonstrating the Need for Climate Change Action

[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] It is truly the era of electric vehicles. The electric vehicle craze that swept the United States in 2021 is expected to continue through 2022.

Following Tesla, various new electric vehicle models are pouring out, and the competition to determine the true winner will intensify.

Attention is also focused on the success of Korean electric vehicles in the U.S. market, based on 'K Battery' technology.

Tourists are taking photos in front of Kia's electric vehicle EV6 billboard celebrating the New Year 2022 on the evening of the 1st at Times Square, New York City. (Photo by Baek Jong-min)

The change was also evident at New York's New Year's Eve event.

As 2022 began, the sponsor of the New Year's Eve event "Ball Drop" at New York's Times Square, which attracted global attention, was Kia. The event announcing the new year was held against the backdrop of the Kia logo.

Although the on-site audience was limited to 15,000 due to the rapid spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, one billion viewers worldwide watched the event.

Kia supported the Ball Drop event for two consecutive years, but this year was even more special. Last year, the new Sorento was the promotional focus, but this year, the Ball Drop event was used to promote the electric vehicle 'EV6.'

Despite the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, New York City proceeded with the Ball Drop event. The aim was to send a message to the world that New York has returned, which also brought promotional benefits to the Kia EV6.

Many people visiting Times Square on the 1st took commemorative photos with the EV6 advertisement in the background to celebrate the new year. Photos taken by visitors to Times Square will naturally become 'messengers' promoting the EV6.

The fact that a global New Year's Eve event's promotional focus is an electric vehicle evokes a sense of how times have changed. Until 2018, the event was sponsored by the Japanese electronics company Toshiba. In 2019, it was the financial company Capital One, in 2020, the automaker Volkswagen, and since 2021, Kia has taken over.

It is a natural outcome that Kia chose to promote electric vehicles instead of internal combustion engine vehicles just one year after sponsoring the Ball Drop event.

U.S. media are diagnosing 2022 as the inaugural year when electric vehicle competition intensifies.

Tesla remains the dominant electric vehicle company, but it can no longer avoid competition. Tesla's sales surged by 87% last year, but Volkswagen has already surpassed Tesla in Europe.

MotorTrend selected Rivian's R1T and Lucid Motors' Air Pure as the best electric pickup and passenger cars this year.

The biggest hopeful is the Ford F-150 electric pickup truck. It has already received 200,000 reservations, leading to a halt in new bookings. The F-150 is expected to counter Tesla's promising Cybertruck.

If the F-150 takes the lead in spring 2022, Tesla's Cybertruck will follow. The Cybertruck was originally expected to launch last year, but production will begin at the end of this year, with first deliveries in 2023.

Lucid Motors' 'Air Pure' is also a model to watch. Except for some new technologies, the Air Pure is sold at $69,900.

CNBC also identified Nissan's Ariya, BMW's iX, Cadillac's Lyriq, Canoo's minivan, and Fisker's Ocean as electric vehicles set for full-scale sales this year.

Kia's EV6 proudly holds a place on the list of electric vehicles expected to heat up the market this year. Hyundai's Ioniq is also indispensable.

On the 1st, New York City experienced heavy rain amid an unusual warm spell with temperatures exceeding 10 degrees Celsius. Normally, heavy snow would have fallen, but this was a New Year's scene changed by climate change.

The heavy rain on the first day of the new year in the middle of winter may have been a message that the introduction of electric vehicles is urgent to respond to climate change.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.