Used Electric Cars Lose Popularity... Sharp Drop from 28% to 7% in Two Years

Encar.com Vehicle Purchase Survey
Electric Car Preference Drops Sharply Compared to 2 Years Ago
Hybrid Popularity Remains Stable

This year, only 7% of prospective car buyers preferred electric vehicles. This represents a sharp decline to about one-quarter of last year's level.

On the 30th, Encar.com, the largest car trading platform in Korea, announced these results from a survey titled "Your Next Car in 2024," which asked respondents what type of car they would buy this year.

According to the survey conducted by Encar.com from the 16th to the 23rd, with 20,909 participants, only 6.8% chose electric vehicles as their preferred fuel type. This is a significant drop compared to the 28.2% who selected electric vehicles in the same survey in 2022. The decline in preference for electric vehicles far exceeded the decrease in hybrid vehicle preference (31.7% to 25.8%) during the same period. This is interpreted as concerns over insufficient charging infrastructure and reduced driving range due to the winter cold wave.

The most preferred fuel type was gasoline, accounting for 47.9%. Other preferences included diesel (8.8%) and LPG (1.0%).

Meanwhile, the most desired vehicle type was sports utility vehicles (SUVs)/recreational vehicles (RVs), chosen by 47.1%. This was followed by ▲sedans 39.0%, ▲compact cars 3.9%, ▲hatchbacks/wagons 3.5%, ▲coupes/convertibles 4.1%, and ▲pickup trucks 2.3%.

Additionally, among current vehicle owners, 65.3% said they plan to sell their car this year. The most popular selling method was "used car trading online apps and websites," chosen by 67.2%. Those considering purchasing a vehicle also preferred "searching and buying through used car online apps/websites" (72.8%).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.