Sales of eco-friendly cars have reportedly surpassed 100,000 units in the first quarter in South Korea due to booming demand for hybrid vehicles, industry data showed on Sunday.
According to the data, a total of 101,727 environment-friendly cars made by five South Korean carmakers, including Hyundai Motor and Kia, were sold during the January-March period, up 8.7 per cent from a year earlier.
Out of this total, 85,828 units, or 84.4 per cent, were hybrid cars, soaring 42.4 per cent from last year, reports Yonhap news agency.
Sales of electric vehicles, meanwhile, plunged 51.4 per cent on-year to 15,237 units in the first quarter.
There has been a global slowdown in EV sales.
Even Elon Musk has said that the EV adoption rate globally is "under pressure" and a lot of other auto manufacturers are “pulling back on EVs and pursuing plug-in hybrids instead.”
By model, Kia's Sorento Hybrid was the best-selling model in the first quarter with 19,729 units sold, followed by Hyundai's Santa Fe Hybrid with 15,981 units and Kia's Carnival Hybrid with 12,203 units.
A couple of days back, it was stated by industry association, that South Korea has been experiencing a decline in the exports of environmentally friendly vehicles for the first time in the first quarter. This has marked a departure from the trend of year-on-year increases observed over the past 12 quarters.
According to the Korea Automobile & Mobility Association (KAMA), shipments of eco-friendly vehicles experienced a 5.6% year-on-year decline in the January-March quarter, dropping to 178,003 units from 188,607 units in the corresponding period last year. Yonhap news agency notes that eco-friendly cars include a range of models like gasoline hybrids, battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrids, and hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).
Ola Electric, the largest electric scooter manufacturer in India, announced a reduction in the price of its most affordable variant by 12.5 per cent. The move comes as the company, operating at a loss, aims to stimulate sales following the government's subsidy reduction. The SoftBank Group-backed company launched the S1X scooters last August last year, just months after the government, in a surprise move, lowered the incentives to buy e-scooters.
Inputs from IANS
