The share of environment-friendly vehicles jumped to 8.2 percent of South Korea’s passenger car market last year on government subsidies and changing consumer appetite, a car industry association said Sunday. In 2018, the number of environment-friendly vehicles, such as hybrid electric, all-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell electric models, reached 124,979 units, jumping 26 percent from a year earlier, the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA) said in a statement.

The 8.2-percent share of eco-friendly cars soared from 2.8 percent in 2015. It is higher than 6.6 percent in Western Europe and 3.9 percent in the United States but lower than 32.8 percent in Japan, it said. KAMA didn’t give the figure for 2017 in the statement. Still, obstacles remain to the more widespread use of eco-friendly cars.

The government will have to beef up the charging infrastructure to help promote those zero-emission and lower-emission cars, a KAMA official said in the statement.

(Yonhap)