Hyundai Motor Group's environment-friendly vehicle sales in the global market jumped 36 percent to over 500,000 units in 2020 from a year earlier, industry data showed Sunday.

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's top automaker, and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. sold a total of 501,487 units of eco-friendly models, including electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid models and fuel-cell EVs, worldwide last year, according to their sales data.

By type, gasoline hybrid models accounted for 52 percent of the total with 262,186 units, followed by EVs with 178,158 units, plug-in-hybrids with 54,362 units and fuel cell vehicles with 6,781 units.

Among battery-powered vehicles, Hyundai's all-electric SUV Kona was the bestselling EV model with 84,745 units, and Kia's Niro EV came next with 52,018 units.

Sales of eco-friendly vehicles are expected to rise further this year as the world's No. 5 automotive group plans to launch more electric models.

Hyundai Motor said it plans to launch the IONIQ 5, the first all-electric model based on its own EV platform this year.

Kia announced plans to release its pure electric crossover model based on the dedicated platform in the first quarter. (Yonhap)