Number of Green Cars in South Korea Tops 810,000

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on Jan. 20 that the number of cars registered in South Korea increased 2.9 percent to 24,365,979 last year. It is equivalent to one car per 2.13 persons. The figures of the United States, Japan and Germany are 1.1, 1.7 and 1.6, respectively.

The number of cars increased 4.3 percent in 2015, 3.9 percent in 2016, 3.3 percent in 2017, 3 percent in 2018, 2 percent in 2019 and 2.9 percent in 2020.

The number includes approximately 820,000 electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles. The ratio, 3.4 percent, rose by 0.9 percentage point in 2020. The number of electric vehicles increased 50 percent to 134,962 and those of hybrid and hydrogen vehicles rose 33 percent and 115 percent to 674,461 and 10,906, respectively.

In the electric vehicle category, passenger cars, vans and trucks showed a year-on-year increase of 34 percent, 122 percent and 1,254 percent, respectively.

The ratio of green cars to newly registered cars rose from 6.8 percent to 11.8 percent in two years. On the other hand, the ratio of diesel cars fell from 43 percent to 31 percent in that period. According to the ministry, a lot of consumers replaced their diesel SUVs with gasoline and hybrid cars.

Domestic and imported cars accounted for 89 percent and 11 percent of the total registrations in 2020, respectively. The latter’s market share rose 0.8 percentage point last year.