While major cities in China and the United States are transforming into testing grounds for advanced mobility, South Korea's progress in the sector has stalled — hampered by regulation, insufficient capital, technology and infrastructure gaps, and opposition from some labor unions and taxi cooperatives. Under its strict permit and safety standards, the country has not a single fully driverless vehicle operating without a driver or co-pilot on board. Unlike autonomous driving startups in the U.S. and China that have attracted investments worth trillions of won, not a single Korean company has raised more than 100 billion won. Domestic robotaxi and robovan services also face the additional challenge of overcoming resistance from the taxi and transport industries.
The government plans to introduce Korea's first fully driverless robotaxis in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, starting in the second half of this year, according to industry sources on Sunday. This will mark the beginning of true Level 4 robotaxi trials, moving beyond previous tests that required a human operator in the driver's or passenger seat. The government will initially deploy three vehicles this year and plans to expand to more than 10 next year. While the belated launch of such a pilot program is welcome, the industry views the designated area and fleet size as far too limited.
China currently operates more than 3,000 fully driverless robotaxis. Multiple companies including Baidu's Apollo Go, Pony AI and WeRide are competing in the market. Apollo Go has surpassed 300 million km in cumulative mileage and exceeded 20 million rides. In the United States, key players include Alphabet's Waymo, Amazon's Zoox, and Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv. Waymo, the frontrunner operating 3,000 robotaxis, has driven over 100 million miles (approximately 160 million km) without a driver and has recorded more than 10 million paid trips.
As robotaxis in the U.S. and China have entered the paid commercial service stage and are aggressively expanding their business scope, South Korea has been stuck repeating pilot operations for years. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, only 132 unmanned autonomous vehicles were licensed and in actual service in Korea as of the end of last year, with a total cumulative mileage of just 13.06 million km.
Autonomous vehicles currently operating on streets in Sangam, near Cheonggyecheon in Jongno-gu, and Gangnam-gu in Seoul remain at conditional Level 3 autonomy with a driver on board — not Level 4. Kakao Mobility's "Gangnam Late-Night Seoul Autonomous Car" service, which launched on the 16th as the nation's first of its kind, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government's fully autonomous bus route (23.5 km from Gupabal Station to Yangjae Station), also unveiled on the 30th as another national first, both still require a driver on board. Due to regulatory gaps, drivers must manually take over in school zones and senior protection zones. The government eased regulations in January to allow autonomous driving in school and senior protection zones, but this has yet to be applied in practice. Restrictions on using video data without de-identification measures, stemming from privacy protection concerns, were also only lifted earlier this year. "Korea has as many as 25 laws and 70 provisions related to autonomous driving — that is how heavy the regulation is," said Yoo Si-bok, a senior researcher at the Korea Automotive Technology Institute. "Because we use a 'positive regulation' approach that prohibits everything not explicitly permitted by law, technological progress is inevitably delayed as companies struggle to meet these requirements."
Progress in unmanned freight and delivery vehicles is even slower in both industrial development and deregulation. Rideflux, a domestic autonomous driving software startup, secured a paid transport permit this year and will begin middle-mile autonomous freight service on the Seoul-Jincheon route (224 km round trip). This is in stark contrast to China's Neolix, which has deployed more than 10,000 robovans, and Nuro in the U.S., which is expanding urban delivery through a partnership with Uber — Korea's industry is only just beginning to bloom.
The industry is pinning high hopes on the "Gwangju Autonomous Driving Demonstration City Project," for which the government will invest 60 billion won ($44 million) in the second half of this year to operate a fleet of 200 robotaxis in an urban setting. "The demonstration in Gwangju will be a turning point for the commercialization of autonomous driving in Korea," said Jeong Ha-wook, vice president of Rideflux. "It will serve as a testing ground where many companies can participate, accumulate data and advance commercialization technology."