Car sales suffering except for EVs, hybrids

Economy

Published: 16 May. 2022, 15:03 Updated: 16 May. 2022, 19:36

Car sales suffering except for EVs, hybrids

Environmentally-friendly vehicles including electric cars displayed during an exhibition held at COEX, Gangnam, Seoul in March. Amid rising fuel prices envrionment-friendly vehicles especially EV have surged. [YONHAP]

Rising international fuel prices are starting to hurt car sales — except for environmentally-friendly models.

According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on Monday, domestic automobile sales fell 11.1 percent in April to 143,167 units compared to a year before, including both locally made cars and imports.

Korean brands including Hyundai Motor and Kia saw a 11.2 percent year-on-year decline to 119,967 units. Imports such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW suffered a drop of 10.6 percent to 23,200 units.

Hyundai Motor saw domestic sales drop 15.4 percent to 59,000 units in April while its affiliate Kia saw a 2 percent drop to 50,000 units. GM Korea saw sales fall 46.1 percent to 3,000 units while Renault Motor saw sales nosedive 57.4 percent to 2,000 units.

Ssangyong Motor, which is trying to find a new owner, saw a surge of 45.8 percent year-on-year to 5,000 units, largely because of a base-effect, or very low sales a year ago.

By origin, American brands saw a 57.3 percent drop year-on-year, French brands 39.4 percent, Italian 29.7 percent and Japanese 16.6 percent.

The bright spark was sales of environmentally-friendly vehicles, which surged 57.7 percent to 39,624 in April, hitting a record for the second month in a row.

Hybrid vehicles sold the most among environmentally-friendly vehicles in April with 24,677 units, a record for the second month in a row and 38 percent higher than a year earlier.

Electric vehicles in April sold 12,468 units, a 199.3 percent rise on-year.

Hydrogen-fueled vehicles, despite a strong push by the government, sold only 1,294 units, up 2.3 percent year-on-year.

Sales of plug-in hybrids fell 34.6 percent to 1,185 units.

Korean environment-friendly vehicles saw sales rise 83.6 percent year-on-year to 28,996 units. Imported brands rose 13.9 percent to 10,628 units.

Korean EVs saw a 193.5 percent year-on-year increase to 109,942 units and imported EVs surged 248.4 percent to 1,526 units.

Environmentally-friendly vehicles accounted for 24.6 percent of all vehicles sold in Korea in the first four months of this year, or a total of 126,940 units, an increase of 15.8 percent on-year.

Internal combustion engine vehicles accounted for 75.4 percent, compared to 84.2 percent a year earlier. Their sales dropped 22.1 percent between January and April compared to a year ago.

Demand for environmentally-friendly vehicles also contributed to Korea’s car exports.

Exports of Korean cars rose 40.2 percent year-on-year to 47,953 units in April. By value, exports increased 42.4 percent to $1.32 billion.

Korean vehicle exports by value have been increasing year-on-year for 16 straight months.

Environmentally-friendly vehicles accounted for 25.3 percent of exports by value in April.

Korean hybrid vehicle exports saw a 51.8 percent increase, reaching 28,851 units. EVs saw a 28.1 percent increase to 15,069 units.

By value, environmentally-friendly vehicles now account for 30.1 percent of exports.

But production of vehicles in Korea in April fell 5.3 percent year-on-year to 306,462 units due to shortages of parts from China.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]