Eco-friendly Vehicles Drive Growth
Last year, car exports from South Korea exceeded US$50 billion, achieving the highest ever export performance. Despite the Russia-Ukraine war and global automotive chip shortage, exports of eco-friendly vehicles such as electric and hybrid cars increased significantly and drove growth.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on Jan. 30 that last year's automobile exports from South Korea increased by 16.4 percent compared to the previous year, totaling $54.1 billion. This is the first time that the exports exceeded $50 billion.
Exports of green cars with higher export prices increased a lot. The average export price of internal combustion engine vehicles is about $20,000 and that of green cars is about $30,000. In addition, last year’s market was led by suppliers based on a high exchange rate, and the number of exports (2.31 million units) increased by 13.3 percent, driving the export growth.
Last year, the exports of green cars such as electric vehicles and hybrid cars increased by 36.8 percent to an all-time high of 554,000 units, and the export value increased by 38 percent to an all-time high of $16.1 billion.
The growth of electric vehicle exports was particularly remarkable, increasing 45.2 percent year on year to 224,000 units. Hybrid car exports increased by 34.5 percent to 285,000 units, making up the largest proportion of total green car exports.
Last year, domestic car production increased by 8.5 percent to 3,757,000 units. With the automotive chip supply shortage somewhat alleviated in the latter half of last year, Hyundai and Kia increased their EV production. GM Korea, SsangYong Motor, and Renault Korea also showed double-digit growths.
In 2022, domestic automobile sales decreased by 2.4 percent to 1,684,000 units. Domestic sales of green cars increased 26.8 percent to an all-time high of 440,000 units to account for 22.8 percent of the total domestic sales.
The sales of electric cars increased 62.6 percent year on year to 157,000 units. Hydrogen cars sales increased 19.5 percent to exceed 10,000 units for the first time. About 260,000 hybrid cars were sold at the same time, up 16.8 percent from a year ago.
In December last year, South Korean automakers’ production, domestic sales and exports increased without exception. Specifically, exports increased 28.3 percent to an all-time high of $5.43 billion. Green cars set new records in both export volume (56,000 units) and export value ($1.76 billion). For the first time, electric cars exceeded 30,000 units in monthly exports.
The production increased 10.7 percent to 35,000 units to increase for the eighth consecutive month. The domestic sales totaled 161,000 units, a 4.8 percent increase.