Hyundai, Kia hit 5m in eco-friendly car sales

The number of eco-friendly vehicles sold by Hyundai Motor Company and Kia across the globe has surpassed five million, achieving the milestone after 15 years.

According to the South Korean automakers on Sunday, the accumulated sales of their eco-friendly vehicles stood at 4,995,891 units as of last year. The carmakers logged 111,841 eco-friendly vehicles sold in January this year, bringing up the total to over 5.1 million.

The eco-friendly vehicles include hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles. HEVs led the sum at about 2.95 million units sold, accounting for nearly 60 percent of all eco-friendly vehicle sales. A total of 1.57 million EVs have been sold to take second place, followed by PHEVs at 540,000 units and FCEVs at 38,000 units.

Hyundai and Kia began selling eco-friendly vehicles in 2009 as they debuted the hybrid models of their midsized sedans -- the Hyundai Avante and Kia Forte.

The carmakers under Korean auto conglomerate Hyundai Motor Group combined for 1.36 million eco-friendly vehicles sold last year, turning in a second consecutive year with over one million eco-friendly vehicle sales. The sales of pro-environmental cars jumped 33.3 percent on year.

The automakers have launched 16 HEVs, 11 PHEVs, 23 EVs and 2 FCEVs in the global market so far.

The HEV model of the Kia Niro, a compact sports utility vehicle, topped the automakers’ eco-friendly sales ranking with over 600,000 units sold. The Hyundai Tuscon HEV, a compact SUV, came in second with about 356,000 units sold, followed by the Hyundai Kona Electric, a small electric SUV, with approximately 332,000 units sold.

The Ioniq 5, the first EV to have been built on the automakers’ EV-dedicated modular platform, has logged sales of some 290,000 units as it won multiple car of the year awards worldwide.

Hyundai Motor Group, which retained the world’s third-largest automaker by sales volume for two years in a row last year, has set out a higher eco-friendly goal to reach 1.5 million eco-friendly vehicles sold this year with targets of 600,000 EV sales and 850,000 HEVs sales, up 27 percent and 25 percent on year, respectively.

Hyundai Motor Company plans to launch the Casper Electric, a small electric SUV in the second half of this year while Kia is expected to launch the EV3, a small electric SUV, and the EV4, an electric sedan, in the first and second halves of this year, respectively.