Hyundai Motor and Kia surpassed 1.83 million units in U.S. sales last year, setting an all-time record.
According to Hyundai Motor Group on the 5th, Hyundai Motor and Kia sold 1,386,172 vehicles in the United States last year, up 7.5% from a year earlier. It is the highest sales ever since entering the U.S. market with the export of the country's first front-wheel-drive passenger car, the "Excel," produced at the Ulsan plant in 1986.
Hyundai Motor sold 901,686 vehicles last year, up 7.8%, surpassing 900,000 for the first time, and Kia also rose 2.3% to 852,155. Both companies set annual sales records for the third consecutive year. The premium brand Genesis sold 82,331 vehicles last year, up 9.8% from a year earlier, also an all-time high.
This growth was led by eco-friendly vehicles. Total eco-friendly vehicle sales by Hyundai Motor and Kia reached 434,725, up 25.5% from the previous year. It is a record high. Hyundai Motor climbed 27.1% to 259,419, and Kia increased 23.2% to 175,306.
Among them, hybrids set a new record with 331,023 units sold. Hyundai Motor's hybrid sales reached 189,881, three times its electric vehicles (69,533). Kia also sold 141,412 hybrids alone. As a result, eco-friendly vehicles accounted for 23.7% of Hyundai Motor and Kia's U.S. sales, up 3.4 percentage points from a year earlier and the highest ever.
By model, Hyundai Motor's compact sport utility vehicle (SUV) Tucson sold the most at 234,230 units. The compact sedan Elantra (148,200 units) and the midsize SUV Santa Fe (142,404 units) followed. At Kia, the compact SUV Sportage ranked first with 182,823 units, while the subcompact sedan K4 and the midsize-large SUV Telluride sold 140,288 and 123,281 units, respectively.