Seoul City to Support Early Retirement of Grade 4 Diesel Vehicles Starting Next Year

Final Push to Complete Grade 5 Low Emission Vehicle Project

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] Seoul City announced on the 23rd that starting next year, it will expand low-emission measures such as early scrapping to include diesel vehicles rated grade 4 in order to reduce air pollutants emitted from old diesel vehicles.

Grade 4 diesel vehicles emit a large amount of air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), so the support for early scrapping will be expanded to include grade 4 diesel vehicles. Specific project details, support amounts, methods, and procedures will be announced around the end of January next year after the Ministry of Environment finalizes its guidelines.

Although the fine dust emissions from grade 4 diesel vehicles are about half that of grade 5 vehicles, the amount of air pollutants emitted, including nitrogen oxides (NOx), is comparable to grade 5 vehicles. Among the 1,067,669 diesel vehicles registered in Seoul as of November 30, the number of grade 5 vehicles (112,381 units, 10.5%) and grade 4 vehicles (106,542 units, 10.0%) are similar, so the city explained that it is time to prepare measures for grade 4 vehicles along with completing low-emission measures for grade 5 vehicles.

Grade 4 diesel vehicles are divided into those equipped with Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) at the time of sale and those without, and the city plans to promote low-emission measures for vehicles without such filters.

Since 2018, Seoul has been the first nationwide to impose driving restrictions on grade 5 diesel vehicles during emergency fine dust reduction measures, and to reduce inconvenience and burden on citizens, it has also intensively supported low-emission projects. The low-emission project provides subsidies for early scrapping of old diesel vehicles such as grade 5 vehicles or supports the installation of Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF).

Currently, the early scrapping subsidy provides up to 3 million KRW for vehicles under 3.5 tons gross weight (with a maximum of 6 million KRW for specific groups such as those unable to install filters, low-income earners, and small business owners), and from 4.4 million KRW up to 30 million KRW for vehicles over 3.5 tons. An additional 600,000 KRW is provided for vehicles that cannot be equipped with Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF).

The Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) installation project supports 90% of the device cost (10% self-payment), and vehicles equipped with the filter receive benefits such as exemption from environmental improvement charges for 3 years and exemption from soot inspections for 3 years if performance maintenance inspections are passed. (For livelihood vehicles such as those owned by basic livelihood security recipients, 100% of installation costs are supported.)

Since the city began full-scale low-emission projects for diesel vehicles in 2003, it has supported approximately 1.3663 trillion KRW and completed low-emission measures for about 507,000 vehicles as of the end of November 2022. The measures include early scrapping of about 206,000 vehicles, installation of Diesel Particulate Filters on about 223,000 grade 5 diesel vehicles, and installation or engine replacement of Diesel Particulate Filters on about 4,000 construction machines.

As a result of Seoul’s continuous promotion of low-emission projects, the number of actual operating vehicles excluding non-operating vehicles among grade 5 or unregulated vehicles decreased from 21,811 at the end of last year to 7,153 as of the end of November this year, a reduction of 14,658 vehicles (67%). The city plans to complete the low-emission project for grade 5 vehicles by next year.

In addition, to reduce non-road mobile source pollution, the city plans to promote an early scrapping project for two types of construction machinery?forklifts and excavators?that account for more than half of construction machines but cannot undergo low-emission measures.

Yoo Yeon-sik, Head of Seoul City’s Climate and Environment Headquarters, said, “Thanks to the active participation of citizens such as owners of grade 5 vehicles, the low-emission project for grade 5 diesel vehicles is in its final stage. Seoul City will take the lead in protecting citizens’ health from fine dust by proactively implementing reduction measures such as early scrapping subsidies for grade 4 old diesel vehicles starting next year.”

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