SEOUL, Mar. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Diesel cars, known to be one of the major causes of air pollution, comprised nearly half of all automobiles driven in South Korea last year.
The Korea Transportation Safety Authority announced last Friday that cars in South Korea covered a total distance of 327.1 billion kilometers last year, an increase of 2.3 percent compared to the previous year.
The total number of registered cars rose by 3.1 percent, reaching 22.8 million. In contrast, the average daily mileage per car was 39.2 kilometers, dropping by 0.7 percent from the previous year.
The distance travelled by diesel cars amounted to 164.3 billion kilometers, accounting for 50.2 percent of the distance travelled by all cars.
Last year was the first time for diesel cars to cover more than half of the total distance travelled by all automobiles, the safety authority said. Diesel cars travelled 4.7 percent more than the previous year.
Gasoline vehicles travelled 117 billion kilometers, comprising 35.5 percent of the distance covered by all cars. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) vehicles travelled 36.1 billion kilometers, comprising 11 percent of the total distance.
Hybrid and electric cars covered a total of 6.2 billion kilometers, an increase of 33.7 percent from the previous year. However, they only accounted for 1.9 percent of the total distance.
H. M. Kang (firstname.lastname@example.org)