Charging infrastructure

The government targets for 2022 are 10 000 fast EV chargers (with 1 200 added in 2019) and 310 refuelling stations for FCEVs (46 added in 2019) (Government of Korea, 2019a; 2019b).

In 2019, the deployment of chargers will benefit from subsidies of KRW 3.5 million (USD 3 000) for publicly accessible slow chargers,25 KRW 1.3 million (USD 1 200) for private chargers26 and KRW 0.4 million (USD 350) for portable chargers (Government of Korea, 2019a). For fast chargers, subsidies were at KRW 35 million (USD 30 000) in 2018 (Korea Environment Corporation, 2018). Fast chargers are restricted to collective entities and not available for private individuals.

Industrial policy

Like Japan, Korea has ambitions to scale-up overseas sales of low-emission vehicles, with a goal to boost production capacity of zero-emissions cars ten-fold, from the current 1.5% to more than 10% by 2022. To encourage this, manufacturers will receive support to promote ZEV exports in the form of liquidity support and loan guarantees (Government of Korea, 2018). The government also anticipates that BEV exports will increase seven-times from the current 36 000 units to 250 000 units, while exports of FCEVs will rise to 5 000 a year by 2022 (Government of Korea, 2018). To help reach these ambitious targets, the government will increase support for R&D in the areas of chips and batteries to develop key technologies such as solid state, lithiumsulphur and lithium-metal batteries (Manthey, 2018).

United States

The key policy updates that are expected to drive the transition to electric mobility in the United States are summarised in Table 2.10.

Table 2.10. Overview of EV and EVSE policies in the United States, 2018/19

25The number of slow charging stations eligible for state support will be limited to a maximum of ten within a “large community” (defines as more than 1 000 households) to prevent concentration of charging points in particular regions.

26Subsidies for private charging stations will be suspended at the end of 2019.

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Vehicle policies

In April 2018, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) announced a review of the GHG emissions standards for new LDVs sold in the United States between 2022 and 2025 (IEA, 2018a). The information released for comment proposed a freeze of the GHG emissions standards for vehicles sold between 2021 and 2026 (US EPA, 2018). A group of 20 states, led by California,27 has challenged the administration proposal as unlawful and suggested litigation if federal regulators move forward with the freeze (Shephardson, 2019). Despite calls to revisit the fuel economy regulations in the form that preceded the change, the Auto Alliance, whose members produce more than 70% of cars and light-duty trucks in the United States, expressed support for continued improvements in fuel economy rather than a freeze (Shepardson, 2017; Automotive News, 2016). Auto Alliance indicated a clear preference for a single regulatory environment rather than a split system, calling for a negotiated compromise between the federal administration and the state of California (Auto Alliance, 2018).

Charging infrastructure

The United States is among the countries that have ramped up their ambition to install fast charging facilities along highways (IEA, 2018a). Our 2018 analysis also noted that California had boosted its infrastructure deployment target for 2025, along with its 2030 target of 5 million EVs. California’s Executive Order B-48-18 includes a proposal to invest USD 900 million to deploy 250 000 charging points by 2025, of which around 10 000 outlets should be DC fast chargers (Electrify America, 2019; State of California, 2018).28 Various other states are augmenting financial commitments for charging infrastructure, mostly through electric utilities. New Jersey, California and New York announced investments totalling nearly USD 1.3 billion, adding more than 50% to the existing government-driven investment in the United States so far (Bloomberg, 2018a). Combined with previous announcements through Electrify America (USD 2 billion), Maryland (USD 104 million) and Massachusetts (USD 45 million), the total announced investments add up to almost USD 3.5 billion between 2017 and 2027 (Electrify America, 2019; The National Law Forum, 2018). Overall, more than half of the state-level administrations in the United States had EVSE incentives in place in 2018 (AFDC, 2019b).

Industrial policy

The United States has a long history of funding battery R&D. The US Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) supports a variety of work to lower the cost and increase the convenience of EVs by collaborating with national laboratories and industry to improve batteries and electric drive systems. An example is VTO’s Batteries, Charging and Electric Vehicles Program, which supports R&D and aims to: reduce the cost of EV batteries to less than USD 100/kWh and ultimately to USD 80/kWh; increase the range of EVs to 300 miles; and decrease charging time to 15 minutes or less (US Government, 2019a). In February 2019, the Argonne National Laboratory announced the opening of a battery recycling centre to reclaim and recycle critical materials (e.g. cobalt and lithium) (US Government, 2019b).

27California was granted a waiver by the EPA to implement its own GHG emissions standards in 2009 (US EPA, 2009) and is subject to a proposal by the federal administration to strip its ability to do so. California has announced its intention to maintain the more stringent rules even if federal standards are rolled back (Davenport and Hiroko, 2018). However, the federal government is considering a withdrawal of the waiver (NHTSA, 2018).

28California also aims to deploy 200 hydrogen stations by 2025.

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