Electric vehicles account for nearly 20 pct of Jan.-April car imports

SEOUL, May 17 (Yonhap) -- Nearly 1 out of 5 imported vehicles in South Korea were battery-powered ones in the January-April period despite slowing sales of electric vehicles (EVs) globally, industry data showed Friday.

In the first four months, registrations of pure EVs jumped to 13,863 units from 5,417 during the same period of last year, accounting for 18.2 percent of overall vehicle imports, according to data from the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA).

Tesla Inc.'s Model Y SUV topped other EV models with registrations of 6,016 units in the four months, followed by Tesla's Model 3 with 1,731 units, BMW's i5 eDrive40 sedan with 644 units, and Audi's Q4 e-tron SUV with 621 units, the data showed.

Registrations of imported gasoline hybrid cars rose 39.3 percent on-year to 37,085 units, taking up 48.7 percent of all imported cars in the January-April period. Their ratio jumped from 32.2 percent in the year-ago period.

In contrast, the number of imported gasoline cars fell 49 percent to 20,828 units in the four-month period from 40,481 a year ago. The ratio of gasoline cars also dropped to 27.4 percent from 49 percent.

Diesel-powered car registrations fell 71 percent to 2,084, with their ratio down to the lowest 2.7 percent from 8.7 percent during the same period.

kyongae.choi@yna.co.kr
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