Hyundai Motor Group’s cumulative US sales of green cars top 500,000

Hyundai Motor Group’s cumulative sales of eco-friendly vehicles in the United States surpassed the 500,000-unit mark in February, 11 years after its entry into the American market, the group said Monday.

The group’s two flagships — Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. — sold a combined 15,218 environmentally friendly vehicles in the US last month, bringing their cumulative sales to 508,599 units.

Last year alone, combined sales of green vehicles by Hyundai Motor and Kia spiked 183.5 percent on-year to 110,634, thanks to the launch of new models, including the IONIQ 5 all-electric model.

Hyundai Motor Group’s sales of eco-friendly vehicles in the U.S stood at 13,491 in 2011 but surged to 55,681 in 2017. The figure continued to go south in 2018 and 2019 before tumbling to 39,024 in 2020 amid the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Sales of hybrid models were the largest at slightly over 461,000 units over the past 11 years, followed by electric vehicles with more than 46,000.

Hyundai Motor and Kia began to sell EVs in America in 2014, and Hyundai Motor, the group’s main affiliate, debuted its Nexo hydrogen fuel-cell model in 2018. It has sold 966 Nexos in the US so far.

The top-selling model was Hyundai Motor’s Sonata hybrid at 147,661 units, trailed by Kia’s Niro hybrid with 112,568 and the IONIQ hybrid with 76,134.

Hyundai Motor Group expected their green car sales in the US to be brisk this year. In the first two months of this year alone, its sales of eco-friendly vehicles came to 26,009 units, accounting for an all-time high of 13.1 percent of its total US sales. (Yonhap)