8th Meeting to Promote BIG3
Government to Work to Address Car Chip Shortage
Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki presided over the 8th Meeting to Promote BIG3[1], a subsidiary committee of the Industrial Innovation Meeting, held on April 16. Measures to address car chip shortages and plans to increase R&D investment in future cars were main topics of discussion. A roadmap to the 2025 driverless mobility services were also reviewed at the meeting.
The following is a summary of Deputy Prime Minister Hong’s keynote address.
Address car chip shortages
Car manufacturing has been disrupted by chip shortages and supply concerns have been growing. We discussed the auto semiconductor supply issue at this meeting held early March, and one of the outcomes is technology acquisition underway now by an auto supplier to produce chips for future cars. Our discussion on auto chip supply will centered on the following.
- Support the commercialization of technologies by including them in the high-tech material supplier program[2]
- Provide R&D support for SiC and GaN power semiconductors
- Promote cooperation between car manufacturers and chip suppliers
- Start working on a future car chip roadmap with mid- to long-term perspectives
Increase R&D investment in future cars
We will prepare Korean industries for rapid transition from internal combustion engines to clean, driverless cars by increasing our investment in the following.
- Keep increasing R&D investment in future cars until 2025: Invest 367.9 billion won this year, an increase of 37 percent from the previous year
- Help acquire six core technologies of batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, communication between driverless cars, car semiconductors, autonomous vehicle sensors and self-driving software
- Help car suppliers with transition to future cars, including the transitory energy-efficient hybrid cars
- Develop services which use autonomous vehicles, such as taxis and delivery
A roadmap to the 2025 driverless mobility services
With the launch of the level 3 self-driving cars this year, we will promote developing markets for services using the self-driving vehicle.
- Open up the testing of services in the first half: Services to be tested will be shuttle buses, street sweepers, local buses, vehicles for airport pickup services, robotaxis and BRT
- Develop large self-driving buses this year, and promote using driverless vehicles for public services, such as mobility support for the disabled and safety patrol
- Draw up a framework for self-driving transportation and logistics services by May this year, and build an integrated data platform for driverless vehicles by 2025, which covers from self-driving data and services development to manufacturing
