Korea to reorganize management platform and revise regulations to expand the use of electric vehicles

South Korea’s Ministry of Environment announced that it will reorganize the existing Integrated Website for Low Emission Vehicles into the Integrated Website for Non-polluting Vehicles and build an integrated management platform by the end of 2021 that brings information on public quick chargers from the Ministry and chargers from private charging companies together. The Ministry also announced that it is promoting a project to improve aging public quick charging facilities for electric vehicles to minimize the inconvenience caused by aging charging facilities. Furthermore, the Ministry is strengthening its efforts to expand the use of electric vehicles, for example, by issuing an administrative notice to revise relevant regulations to determine the types of electric vehicles that can be subsidized or financed by the national and local governments.

In accordance with Article 58 of the Clean Air Conservation Act, the Ministry has provided information on the location and usage of chargers nationwide while operating the Integrated Website for Low Emission Vehicles (www.ev.or.kr), which manages information on charging facilities for electric vehicles. However, the information lacked specificity and was not reflected in real time.

The building of the integrated management platform is one of the follow-up measures to the Non-polluting Vehicle Charging Facilities (Infrastructure) Expansion Plan announced at the BIG3 Innovative Growth (BIG3: eco-friendly cars, system semiconductors, and medical big data) Promotion Conference held jointly by related departments on July 29, 2021. The significance of the project is to create a foundation for the integrated management of electric vehicle chargers by collecting key information on electric vehicle chargers nationwide, such as charging volume and charging fees.

To this end, the Ministry held an online meeting with 25 private charging companies in South Korea on August 20, 2021, to discuss the possibility of receiving standardized information on chargers currently in operation (the start date and time of the last charge, the end date and time of the charge, and the start date and time of the currently running charge) and usage information (charging volume and charging fees). In collaboration with the private companies, an integrated platform will be established by the end of 2021 that collect information on the status and usage of approximately 92,000 chargers nationwide, in addition to the 5,564 chargers operated by the Ministry.

Once the integrated platform is established, it will be possible to provide information on the status of chargers in five-minute intervals, allowing consumers to check the availability of chargers in real time. This information will also be utilized to formulate the government’s policy for chargers. The Ministry of Environment plans to upgrade the system from the next year in order to manage the information on the Integrated Website for Non-polluting Vehicles being integrated and reorganized this time more efficiently and safely.

Meanwhile, the Ministry revealed that it has been promoting a project to improve aging public quick charging facilities (128 units to be replaced and 80 units to be removed) in recent years in order to minimize the inconvenience caused by aging charging facilities. The 128 chargers to be replaced were installed between 2012 and 2015 and repairing has been delayed due to the interruptions in the communication network service of the chargers and the lack of spare parts. The decision to remove the 80 chargers was made due to the closure of establishments and the unavailability of additional electric capacity.

In the process of this replacement project, the Ministry of Environment will introduce three charging methods (DC Combo, DC CHAdeMO, and 3-phase AC) so that electric vehicles produced before the standardization of charging methods (standardized to DC Combo in 2017) can also be charged, in order to expand the types of vehicles that can use the chargers. The replacement project will be conducted in a phased manner from January 2022 after the new certification of chargers that adopt the three charging methods and is scheduled to be completed by April 2022.

Furthermore, the Ministry has been disclosing information on the failure state of chargers on its Integrated Website for Non-polluting Vehicles on a daily basis since July 12, 2021. By operating a failure repair system for each charger manufacturer and a failure reporting incentive system, the failure rate of chargers is maintained at the 1% range, and the failure repair period is 7 days or less. The scheduled date of repair for each failed charger is announced not only on the Integrated Website for Non-polluting Vehicles but also at the site. In order to increase convenience for users, the Ministry plans to reduce the failure rate and further shorten the failure repair period.

On November 5, 2021, the Ministry issued an administrative notice on the partial revision of the Regulations on Evaluation of Electric Vehicles to be Promoted in order to guide the improvement of vehicle performance by conducting evaluation tests that match the characteristics of each vehicle model in determining which electric vehicles can be subsidized and financed by the national and local governments in accordance with Article 58, Paragraphs 3 and 17 of the Clean Air Conservation Act. The main contents of the amendment are as follows.

• Subdivision of vehicle types (passenger vehicles, shared vehicles, cargo vehicles, motorcycles), establishment of evaluation items and standards
• Presentation of low-temperature single-charge driving distance standards by 2024
• Clarification of other evaluation criteria, reflection of changes in conditions

The original text of this article can be viewed at the following URL (in Korean).
https://me.go.kr/home/web/board/read.do?pagerOffset=80&maxPageItems=10&maxIndexPages=10&searchKey=&searchValue=&menuId=10525&orgCd=&boardId=1481260&boardMasterId=1&boardCategoryId=&decorator=

The administrative notice on the partial revision of the Regulations on Evaluation of Electric Vehicles to be Promoted (in Korean).
https://www.epeople.go.kr/cmmn/idea/redirect.do?ideaRegNo=1AE-2111-0000097