Environmentally friendly cars account for half of new registrations in first half of year

Environmentally friendly vehicles accounted for half of new car registrations in Korea in the first half of this year, driven by a sharp increase in EV sales, an auto market tracker said on Sunday.

It marked the first time that environmentally friendly vehicles made up more than half of new car registrations during the January to June period, according to the CarIsYou data research center, which cited government data.

In the first six months of the year, registrations of environmentally friendly vehicles — including battery electric, gasoline hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell models — totaled 429,163 units, accounting for 50.4 percent of the 851,833 newly registered vehicles, the data showed.

The share of environmentally friendly vehicles has risen steadily from 9.1 percent in 2020 to 25.5 percent in 2023 and 38.5 percent in 2025.

Meanwhile, the share of gasoline-powered vehicles fell to 39 percent in the first half, dropping below the 40 percent mark for the first time since 2016, when the figure stood at 39.9 percent.

Robust EV sales drove the overall increase in environmentally friendly vehicle registrations.

EV registrations surged 112.6 percent from a year earlier to 198,969 units in the first half, making EVs the only major power train category to post on-year growth.

“An expanded lineup of new models and the early disbursement of government EV subsidies have helped environmentally friendly vehicles become mainstream in the domestic auto market,” an industry representative said.

Yonhap