Eco-friendly vehicles accounted for half of new car registrations in Korea in the first half of this year, driven by a sharp increase in electric vehicle (EV) sales, an auto market tracker said Sunday. It marked the first time that eco-friendly vehicles made up more than half of new car registrations during the January-June period, according to the CarIsYou Data Research Center, which cited government data. In the first six months of the year, registrations of eco-friendly vehicles — including battery electric, gasoline hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell models — totaled 429,163 units, accounting for 50.4 percent of the 851,833 newly registered vehicles, the data showed. The share of eco-friendly vehicles has risen steadily, from 9.1 percent in 2020 to 25.5 percent in 2023 and 38.5 percent in 2025. Meanwhile, the share of gasoline-powered vehicles fell to 39 percent in the first half, dropping below the 40 percent mark for the first time since 2016, when the figure stood at 39.9 percent. Robust EV sales drove the overall increase in eco-friendly vehicle registrations. EV registrations surge