10,000 electric cars to stamp out postal mopeds
Gwanghwamun Post Office workers parade on their mopeds on Sejongdaero Road in Seoul's Gwanghwamun Square on Jan. 2, 2017, as they start their first working day of the year. / Korea Times file
By Ko Dong-hwan
The South Korean postal service is introducing 10,000 electric cars to replace mopeds that have caused workers fatigue and are limited to carrying 35 kilograms of mail and parcels.
Korea Post will test the new one-person vehicles in March, service President Kang Seong-ju said on Thursday. The cars can carry loads up to 150 kilograms.
“We will bring in 10,000 electric cars by 2020,” Kang said at the first meeting of the service’s new task force at Korea Post’s main office in Jung-gu, Seoul. Kang heads the task force comprising 17 employees and experts. “The new cars will reduce the workers’ fatigue and raise their efficiency.”
Based on the test and discussions with the workers’ union, the service will decide whether to increase the car’s capacity and safety features.
A Chungbuk University professor who joined Thursday’s meeting said electric cars are the “big bang” of this year, offering many economic growth opportunities. He expected the service’s new cars will “boost South Korea’s all-wheel-drive, small-size electric car market.”
Korea Post, under the Ministry of Science and ICT, has been pursuing futuristic technologies to raise efficiency.
In November, it succeeded in delivering mail and parcels to an island using a drone for the first time in Korea. The drone went from a site in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, to the town center on Deukryang Island, traveling about four kilometers over water. It carried a package of mail and parcels weighing eight kilograms and flew at an altitude of about 50 meters.