Apparently, South Korea didn’t get the memo that sales of electric vehicles are sliding. Kia just set a new EV sales record, clocking 29,392 units sold through the first half of 2024. It’s the best half-year for electric vehicles in the company’s history. Hyundai isn’t doing bad, either. The Ioniq 5 just had its best June of all time, and the Ioniq 6 is up 113 percent versus this time last year.
Let’s start with Kia. The EV6 is Kia’s electric champion, selling 10,941 units for the year so far. Overall, the EV6 is up 31.3 percent, and the EV9 isn’t far behind. We don’t have a percentage for the SUV because it wasn’t on sale last year, but 9,671 have sold through the first half of 2024. As for the Niro, Kia doesn’t break out electric sales from the hybrid model, but basic math tells us 8,780 Niro EVs should be the number.
Meanwhile at Hyundai, the Ioniq 5 is having a banner year. June was a record-setting month for the in-demand hatchback, clocking 3,755 sales. Overall, the car is up 37 percent versus last year with 18,728 total sales—nearly beating the EV9 and EV6 combined. The Ioniq 6 is also up year-over-year, with 6,912 sales.
The news isn’t all good, however. Though up significantly through the first half of 2024, the Ioniq 6 dropped slightly in June with just 914 sold. Overall vehicle sales at Hyundai are up just 2.2 percent, but Kia is slightly in the red with a drop of 2.0 percent. Furthermore, narrowing in on June we see Hyundai down 2.5 percent and Kia off by 6.5 percent. Interestingly, both brands would’ve been worse off without strong electric sales.
The CDK Global cyberattack is likely a contributing factor to slower June sales. CDK’s software suite for dealers went down on June 19, essentially bringing service and sales to a screeching halt. It was down for the remainder of June and is only now coming back online, with full restoration expected by July 4. It’s believed the outage could cost dealers nearly $1 billion when all is said and done.