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Nearly one out of five imported vehicles in South Korea were battery-powered ones in the January-April period despite slowing sales of electric vehicles (EVs) globally, industry data showed on Friday.

In the first four months, registrations of pure EVs jumped to 13,863 units from 5,417 during the same period of last year, accounting for 18.2 per cent of overall vehicle imports, according to data from the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA).

Tesla’s Model Y SUV topped other EV models with registrations of 6,016 units in the four months, followed by Tesla's Model 3 with 1,731 units, BMW's i5 eDrive40 sedan with 644 units, and Audi's Q4 e-tron SUV with 621 units, the data showed, reports Yonhap news agency.

Registrations of imported gasoline hybrid cars rose 39.3 per cent on-year to 37,085 units, taking up 48.7 per cent of all imported cars in the January-April period. Their ratio jumped from 32.2 per cent in the year-ago period.

In contrast, the number of imported gasoline cars fell 37 per cent to 2,828 units in the four-month period from 4,481 a year ago. The ratio of gasoline cars also dropped to 27.4 per cent from 49 per cent.

Diesel-powered car registrations fell 71 per cent to 2,084, with their ratio down to the lowest 2.7 per cent from 8.7 per cent during the same period, the data showed.