[Between Legislation and Reality ③] "The System Exists, but Cars Can't Be Sold"... Regulatory Barriers Hindering Autonomous Driving

Remote Control Blocked by Regulation: Driverless Operations Face Hurdles in Korea

Demonstration Cities Are Only a Stopgap: Comprehensive Legislative Overhaul Needed

Rising Development Costs to Meet Regulations: Subsidies Essential for Early

While legislation and systems surrounding the autonomous driving industry are being rapidly overhauled, there are growing concerns within the industry that the structure of the market makes it difficult for autonomous vehicles to gain traction. In reality, more aggressive deregulation, increased financial support, and a comprehensive legislative framework are needed for full commercialization.

According to a compilation of reports by The Asia Business Daily on March 25, the most urgent regulatory improvement requested by the autonomous driving industry is the "permission of remote driving." From the manufacturers' perspective, a remote driving system that can control vehicles externally in emergencies is essential to enable fully driverless services without a human inside the vehicle.

However, the current regulations effectively do not allow this. According to domestic safety standards, remote operation is only permitted when the distance between the person and the vehicle is within six meters. This standard was originally designed with remote parking technology in mind and is not suitable for remote driving required for autonomous vehicles.

As a result, it is difficult to find autonomous vehicles operating on the roads without drivers in Korea. Government agencies such as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport only grant limited approval, with the condition that there must be supplementary systems in place to address emergencies such as accidents or communication failures. In contrast, major global cities such as San Francisco in the United States and Wuhan in China already have driverless autonomous vehicles incorporated into daily life. Not only have autonomous taxi services without drivers been commercialized, but control centers can also remotely operate vehicles in the event of communication failures or sudden accidents.

The government has also taken steps to support the industry by lowering institutional barriers, such as designating Gwangju as a pilot city for autonomous driving. However, the industry believes that such sandboxes are limited if they remain confined to regional demonstrations. An industry representative stated, "The sandbox is just a stopgap," adding, "Furthermore, autonomous vehicles that can only operate in certain areas have no commercial appeal."

The industry points out that the threshold for commercializing autonomous driving remains high. Autonomous vehicles require massive investments for development, certification, map building, and safety validation, yet the actual number of vehicles sold is extremely limited. In order to meet all regulatory requirements, development costs increase, which pushes up the sales price to several hundred million won, resulting in a loss of price competitiveness and creating a vicious cycle where demand fails to grow. The National Assembly introduced a partial amendment to the "Act on Promotion and Support for Commercialization of Autonomous Vehicles," which includes the basis for subsidies, in November last year, but the bill has been pending for several months.

A similar example is the domestic Level 3 (partial autonomous driving) system. Korea boasted of being the first in the world to establish Level 3 safety standards in 2020, but six years later, virtually no Level 3 autonomous vehicles have passed domestic certification and been sold in Korea. Although the system is in place, passing certification itself is difficult, and there is not enough demand for high-priced autonomous vehicles.

The situation is no different for "Level 4" conditional fully autonomous vehicles. Even if a system exists, without follow-up frameworks for insurance, regular inspections, and operational permits, commercialization will inevitably stall again. Moreover, in order to launch a vehicle in the market, not only must it receive certification from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, but it must also meet various standards from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Environment, as well as obtain operational approval from the National Police Agency. Another industry insider lamented, "The costs continue to rise endlessly, but sales are so low that it is impossible to break even," adding, "It is difficult for new industries to grow under such conditions."

The industry does not attribute the root of the problem simply to "too many regulations." Rather, it points to the issue of applying existing industrial regulations to new industries. The industry is calling for the establishment of special laws or comprehensive exemption systems specifically for emerging industries such as autonomous driving and robotics.

This would involve boldly exempting existing regulations nationwide for a certain number of vehicles or a fixed period to open the market first, and then refining the system based on accident data and operational results. Some argue that, as in the United States, a more realistic model would be to expand exemptions for a specific number of vehicles.

Lee Junseok, leader of the Reform Party and a member of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, stated, "Just as excessive regulations on the iPhone in the past delayed the formation of the domestic smartphone ecosystem, repeating the same mistake in autonomous driving will result in massive industrial losses," adding, "The basic framework of vehicle safety regulations needs to be completely redesigned with a focus on autonomous driving."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.