The South Korean government is to boost the country’s environmentally friendly vehicle industry by injecting KRW3.1 trillion (US$2.7bn) over the next five years.
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The Presidential Committee on Green Growth, led by prime minister Kim Hwang-sik, has set a target to manufacture 1.2m green cars annually by 2015, 900,000 of which will be exported.
These will include electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, plug in hybrid electric vehicles, fuel cell and clean diesel vehicles.
The Lee Myung-bak administration has ambitious plans to make the nation a green growth powerhouse and the country has voluntarily vowed to reduce its carbon emissions by 30% by 2020.
In September, Hyundai introduced the nation’s first full electric vehicle designed for mass production, the BlueOn, following Mitsubishi’ i-MiEV which was launched in March.
President Lee said at the launch of the BlueOn: “I hope Korea can lead the budding global electric automobile market some day, as the age of electric cars is approaching faster than expected.”
Under Seoul’s latest plan the injection of funds, organised by the private sector, will be used to assist the mass-production and commercialisation of green vehicles, plus localisation of the production of their key parts.
The government will focus on research and development of local production of motors, battery packs, light weight materials and common rail clean diesel engines starting next year.
Mass production of electric automobiles will start next year, while that for plug in hybrid cars and clean diesel buses is projected to begin around 2012 and 2015, respectively.
The government will offer subsidies and tax benefits for those who purchase them by the target year, officials said.
