The road to e-mobility is still long

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The official Korean name of the capital city of South Korea is “Seoul Special City”. And this mega-city that vibrates around the clock and is perpetually covered in a fog of smoke is something truly special. With a population of just under 9.8 million on an area of ​​just 606 square miles, it’s twice the population density of New York City. In addition, Seoul is the second city with the most dense urban area in the world, after Paris.

And similar to Paris, the streets in Seoul are consistently overloaded and congested despite a well-developed and inexpensive public transport and subway network. Driving on multi-lane, urban fast-link axes – whatever the time of day or night – reminds us of the rush hour in Gubrist. Except that South Koreans are much more relaxed and less aggressive behind the wheel than us Swiss. They change lanes almost every second to go a few meters ahead in heavy traffic. And the zipper system seems unknown in Seoul. But every lane change is always accurately announced by a flashing light, and South Korea doesn’t seem to have envious lane blockers.

Almost no accidents despite heavy traffic

It’s also surprising: Even though people overtake on the right and left – and the big, multi-lane intersections can sometimes seem extremely confusing to us Europeans despite the usual right-hand traffic, Koreans always have everything under control. So for two days in Seoul, we didn’t see a single accident. And unlike Rome or Paris, we rarely see scratched cars. Maybe there is a speed camera on the roadside every few hundred meters (detected and reported by the navigation system) or there is a strict alcohol limit of 0.03 per thousand across the country. Although Koreans love to drink alcohol, locals no longer get behind the wheel after visiting the karaoke bar. The penalty for having too much alcohol in the blood is brutal.

No small cars, almost no electric cars

However, it was the number of vehicles that surprised us the most during our visit to the capital of South Korea. We’d expect thousands of humming little electric cars in the technically advanced digital media megacity. However, we were mostly met with an urban landscape with majestic combustion sedans and some SUVs. small car? none. electric cars? It’s also hard to find. Maybe a Tesla or occasionally a Hyundai Ioniq 5 taxi. But other than that, we hardly see any plug-in vehicles, and we don’t see public charging stations in the many street canyons between huge skyscrapers.

So we ask ourselves: How will electromobility spread outside Europe as quickly as many hope, while electromobility is still in its infancy, even in progressive and technically open metropolises like South Korea? The smog that hangs permanently over the city probably won’t disappear anytime soon.

Source: Blick