Sales of environmentally-friendly cars by South Korea’s top automaker Hyundai Motor Co. and its sister company Kia Motors Corp. around the globe so far this year have nearly tripled from a year-ago period.

The two Korean carmakers sold 72,787 units of green or eco-friendly vehicles during the first four months of this year across the world, up 203 percent from the year-ago record of 23,976 units, the companies said on Sunday. They have already shipped out more than half of last year’s volume of 128,376 units in the first four months.

Hyundai Motor Group that runs the two automakers has set a goal to become the world’s second biggest eco-friendly carmaker by 2020 by selling more than 200,000 clean vehicles this year. The carmakers had ranked fourth in the world category by elbowing out Ford Motor in 2015 and climbed up another notch to the third last year by outpacing Renault-Nissan Alliance in terms of sales. The next target, however, is tougher as No.2 Honda Motor was ahead by more than 70,000 last year. The world’s top-seller in clean vehicle category is Japan’s Toyota and its luxury brand Lexus with combined sales topping 1.2 million units in 2015.

Kia Motors ascended fast in the rank with its compact hybrid SUV Niro. Sales of Niro Hybrid totaled 34,361 units over the January-April period this year, accounting for 47 percent of Hyundai Motor Group’s entire sales of eco-friendly cars. Niro became the first green car of the group that achieved 10,000 monthly milestone last month with sales reaching 13,017.

Hyundai Motor’s IONIQ Hybrid has also seen its sales surging around the world since exports to the European market began in August last year. Its global sales amounted to 4,091 units last month alone, far exceeding domestic sales of 3,629 units in the same period last year when the car was only available at home. Hyundai sold 1,438 units of IONIQ Hybrid in Europe last month, 40 percent greater than 1,055 units sold in Korea.

Global sales of IONIQ Electric totaled 4,691 units for the first four months this year. The car boasts high cost-effectiveness as it can run up to 191 kilometers (119 miles) on a single charge, according to the Ministry of Environment. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified its fuel efficiency at 136 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe), 12MPGe higher than that of BMW i3. MPGe is the EPA’s measure to calculate electric vehicles’ fuel economy and compare it to conventional internal combustion on motor vehicles.

By Park Chang-young

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