Korea’s commercial passenger vehicles go green

[Graphics by Song Ji-yoon and Yoon Yeon-hae]

Electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining traction in South Korea’s commercial passenger vehicle industry as users opt for cheaper maintenance costs.

According to data from CarIsYou, an automobile statistics platform, on Thursday, there were 33,575 electric taxis in operation in Korea as of the end of March, accounting for 14.9 percent of the entire taxis.

This is a 15-fold increase in just over three years, given that the ratio was only about 1 percent at the end of 2020. This means that one out of every seven taxis has been converted to an EV.

When it comes to passenger vehicles, there are only about 430,000 EVs, accounting for 2 percent of the entire 21.49 million passenger vehicles on the road.

Although more than 100,000 new EVs have been sold each year since 2021, the figure is still small compared to the total number of registered and operational vehicles.

The most popular electric model for taxis is the IONIQ 5 (14,400 units), followed by the EV6 (7,325 units), Niro (6,625 units), and IONIQ 6 (4,019 units).

The number of taxis that use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), on the other hand, is on a decline.

LPG vehicles accounted for 61.2 percent of the newly registered taxis in 2023 from 95.3 percent in 2020. EVs, on the other hand, took up 35.4 percent, up from 2.6 percent during the same period.

This trend is due to the low maintenance costs of EVs.

When driving 5,000 kilometers per month, EVs cost around 200,000 won ($146.13) for charging while LPG vehicles cost about 600,000 won. Saving around 400,000 won a month in fuel costs significantly improves taxi drivers’ income.

Small commercial vehicles used for livelihood purposes are also going green.

The cumulative number of electric cargo vehicles registered in Korea increased by about eight times to 128,560 units at the end of March from only 15,436 units at the end of 2020.

The rental car industry is also seeing EVs expanding in long-term rentals.

The cumulative number of EVs used for rental purposes increased 3.5 times from 15,806 units in 2020 to 55,414 in 2023.