In an effort to accelerate the transformation of electric vehicles, Seoul, the capital of South Korea, will install more than 200,000 public EV chargers over the next four years.
Seoul is known for its good public transportation. However, there are still 40 million cars and motorcycles registered there.
Seoul officials want 400,000 of these private vehicles to be electrified by 2026. That would require 140,000 chargers to meet that goal.
However, they plan to install 220,000 charging stations to ensure that residents are never more than a five-minute walk from one station to another.
Like other big cities, public charging infrastructure is very important to adopt in Seoul, as most of the residents live in apartment buildings with no dedicated space to install private home chargers. While charging in the city center is quite expensive.
Seoul’s solution is to install conventional chargers at gas stations and parking lots, as well as install chargers into building walls or street lights.
Seoul is said to be quite successful in adding charging infrastructure in the region. It is evident that public chargers in Seoul are increasing, from 8,000 in 2020 to 20,000 in 2021.
Seoul also has a “green transportation zone,” where the government restricts access to the most polluting old vehicles, and those vehicles will be banned from operating in the city from 2025.
By 2035, Seoul plans to end registrations for internal combustion cars, and wants to ban the entire public from driving them on city streets by 2050.
