South Korean Government is planning to start giving incentive for Tesla’s vehicles as well starting from middle of September at the earliest. Ministry of Environment (ME) abolished a regulation that requires electric vehicles to be fully charged under 10 hours using a standard outlet, which was a basis that excluded Tesla’s vehicles from getting incentives. While it abolished the regulation on charging time, it did not limit prices of electric vehicles so that any electric vehicles are qualified to receive incentives.
ME abolished a regulation that requires electric vehicles to be fully charged under 10 hours using a standard outlet and is going to pre-notify revised plan of ‘regulation regarding evaluations on electric vehicles’ that prepares standards for minimum charging speed.
This regulation was established in 2012, when electric vehicles started to be supplied, in order to resolve any inconvenience for consumers regarding excessively long charging time. However necessity for revision of this regulation was presented as performance of many electric vehicles has improved recently and as many electric vehicles with large-capacity batteries are being released one after another.
In order to not have electric vehicles with poor battery performance receive any incentives when this regulation is abolished, South Korean Government is going to revise the regulation so that charging speed (minimum current for charging) is at least 32A and 100A for slow and fast chargers respectively.
Classification of cars will be simplified from 4 types such as fast-speed electric vehicle, slow-speed electric vehicle, and freight electric vehicle, electric bus to 3 types such as electric vehicle, electric truck, and electric van.
Tesla, which is currently selling its electric vehicles in South Korea for more than $88,574 (100 million KRW), will be the one to benefit the most from revision of regulation. Because it takes about 14 hours to charge Model S, which is sold by Tesla Korea in South Korea, with a slow charger, it was excluded from one of electric vehicles that receive incentives from ME. Although it only takes 75 minutes to fully charge Model S with Tesla’s charger called ‘Supercharger’, ME’s standard for regular charging and Tesla’s standard for Supercharger are completely different from each other.
Tesla Korea is currently selling Model S 90D, 75D, and 100D in South Korea. Their prices are $102,480 (115.7 million KRW), $88,087 (99.45 million KRW), and $113,995 (128.6 million KRW) respectively. According to where one buys Model S, he or she can buy it for about $62,002 (70 million KRW) with an incentive from South Korean Government.
“Although some were against about giving incentives for expensive electric vehicles during a discussion on revision of regulation, we have agreed that it is appropriate not to put any limitations on prices of cars since incentives for electric vehicles are there to encourage more people from purchasing electric vehicles and improve environment.” said a representative for ME. “From trade perspective, we also agreed that it is unreasonable to limit particular vehicles based on other conditions and not technologies.”
ME is going to gather additional opinions and is going to finalize and proclaim revised bill after September. After the revised bill is proclaimed, Tesla Korea can start providing incentives through ME on its vehicles in middle of September after it applies for evaluations by ME right away and goes through administrative procedures.
“We are going to evaluate developed technologies through modification of standards for evaluation on electric vehicles and we are planning to promote supplies of electric vehicles with excellent performance and easy use.” said Lee Hyung-seop who is the section chief for ME’s Clean Air Planning Section. “We are going to focus on supplying 250,000 electric vehicles by 2020 by widening selection of electric vehicles for consumers.”
Staff Reporter Ham, Bongkyoon | hbkone@etnews.com & Staff Reporter Park, Taejoon | gaius@etnews.com