Mercedes-Benz EV sales tumble in South Korea after fire

German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz AG suffered a nosedive in EV sales in South Korea in August after a fire broke out in one of its electric vehicles there, leading to a downturn in overall imported car sales on the peninsula, data showed on Wednesday.

Only 133 new Mercedes-Benz EVs were registered in August, down 82.2% from a year earlier, according to Seoul-based automotive data provider CarIsYou. The drop came after its EQE electric sedan caught fire in an apartment building garage in Incheon, west of Seoul on Aug. 1.

Registrations of the automaker’s EQE models tumbled 88.5% to 39 units, while those of the EQA, EQB and EQS lineups fell 56.6%, 85.4% and 82.4%, respectively.

Sales of other imported EVs in South Korea also lost ground in the aftermath of the blaze on Aug. 1, which took more than eight hours to put out and burned off 87 vehicles in the parking lot and sparked a nationwide phobia over the clean automobiles.

Registrations of imported EVs, excluding those made by Tesla Inc., tumbled 34.8% to 1,907 units in August, showed data from the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA). The body started including sales of the world’s second-largest EV maker in South Korea this year.

Including Tesla, 4,115 imported EVs were sold last month, according to the data.

OVERALL SLIDE

Total imported car sales in the country fell 4.7% to 22,263 units in August from a year earlier, the KAIDA said.

German luxury automaker BMW Group maintained the top position by selling 5,880 units, down 6.7% on-year. Mercedes-Benz, the No. 2 imported brand in South Korea, suffered a 19.8% drop in overall sales to 5,286 units.

Its E-Class was the best-selling model with 2,237 units registered, however, followed by the Tesla Model Y with 1,215 units and the BMW 5-Series with 1,118 units.

Despite the downturn, sales of imported hybrid vehicles soared 47.7% to 11,041 units. Gasoline and diesel models fell 45.3% and 54.5%, respectively.

Write to Jin-Won Kim at jin1@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.