South Korea pushes for hydrogen on the road

According to the Korea Herald, South Korea wants to boost demand for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by bringing prices down and expanding refueling infrastructure on the road.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said the government would expand state subsidies and waive taxes to bring down the prices of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to around 35 million won ($29,000) by 2018 from the current 85 million won. It will offer a 27.5 million won in subsidy and tax benefits to each buyer of a fuel cell car.

Under the scheme, the government aims to ensure that there are more than 9,000 hydrogen fuel cell cars on the road by 2020 and 630,000 by 2030. If this target is reached, fuel cell cars would account for 10 percent of all new cars sold in the country, and it would enable the country to cut carbon emissions by 4.4 million tons and reduce 5,500 tons of other pollutants released into the atmosphere.

According to the plan, some 80 hydrogen refueling stations will be built by 2020 and the number will be increased to 520 by 2030. The government is committed to providing 1.5 billion won of subsidies per station.

But, volumes are low at the moment. Only 71 hydrogen fuel cell cars were sold this year.

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