Commercial Vehicle Installment Interest Rates ‘Stabilize’ This Year

Commercial vehicle (including trucks and buses) installment interest rates have shown a stable downward trend, as the Bank of Korea cut its benchmark interest rate to 2.5% in May and has kept it unchanged for the past seven months.Read more, Click here

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Direct hit from the downturn in the truck market… last year’s special vehicle market also ‘c..

Amid a prolonged downturn in the Korean truck market driven by the economic slowdown, the special-purpose vehicle segment also failed to escape a declining trend last year.   According to statistics from the KAIZU Data Research Institute, which processes commercial vehicle registration data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and provides them exclusively to this publication, sales of cargo truck–based special-purpose vehicles (including special vehicles) with a payload capacity of 2 tons or more totaled 8,285 units from January to November 2025, based on new vehicle registrations.   This marks a 10.3% decrease from 9,241 units recorded during the same period a year earlier. The decline is notably steeper compared with 2024, when the decrease was marginal at just 0.1%.Read more, Click here

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Highway Rest Area Parking Lots at Capacity, Trucks Competing for Parking Spaces

Although the government has been expanding highway rest areas and drowsy-driving rest stops to prevent drowsy driving, conditions on the ground remain inadequate.Accounts from the field indicate that parking shortages at rest areas remain severe during nighttime hours, and that drowsy-driving rest stops have not become a practical alternative for truck drivers.Read more, Click here

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Cap-over trucks to be phased out from 2027… restructuring of the light-duty truck market

With stricter crash safety standards for light-duty trucks set to take effect in 2027, Korea’s 1-ton truck market is entering a period of major transformation. In particular, the cab-over configuration—long regarded as the standard for 1-ton trucks in Korea, with the engine positioned beneath the driver—has revealed inherent limitations in frontal collision safety.   As a result, manufacturers are developing models based on a semi-bonnet (semi-hood) design, in which roughly half of the engine compartment protrudes toward the front.   Accordingly, the simultaneous discontinuation of existing cab-over models, development of new vehicles, and platform restructuring is accelerating, marking a full-scale reshaping of the 1-ton truck market.Read more, Click here

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Who Is Holding Back the Electrification of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Trucks?

“Zero emissions, carbon neutrality, decarbonization.” These are the key terms the government has repeatedly emphasized while promoting the “greening” of commercial vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. In particular, medium- and heavy-duty trucks with a payload of 3.5 tons or more account for a significant share of greenhouse gas (CO₂) emissions from the road transport sector, prompting the government to identify the eco-friendly transition of internal combustion commercial vehicles as a core policy objective at an early stage.   However, contrary to the government’s vision, the transition to eco-friendly vehicles in Korea’s medium- and heavy-duty truck market remains virtually at zero. At present, hydrogen trucks are the only eco-friendly medium- and heavy-duty vehicles eligible for government subsidies, and even these have seen little actual market uptake. Moreover, there has been no support framework at all for medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks aimed at promoting wider adoption.Read more, Click here

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Shippers and Transport Operators to Face Penalties for Truck Overloading — Not Just Drivers

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on January 8 a partial revision to the Directive on Vehicle Operation Restriction Regulations and began full implementation, aimed at improving the effectiveness of restrictions on vehicle operations and strengthening enforcement against truck overloading.Read more, Click here

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Under the Safe Freight Rate System, Freight transport Became Safer, Freight Rates Increased, and W..

When the Safe Freight Rate System expired at the end of 2022, a performance evaluation titled “Assessment of the Safe Freight Rate System for Trucking” conducted by the Korea Transport Institute showed very high levels of support for the continuation of the system among truck drivers. Support stood at 94.3% in the container sector and 84.0% in the cement sector. In contrast, only 32.9% of shippers in the container sector and 6.7% in the cement sector responded that the Safe Freight Rate System was necessary, clearly revealing a sharp perception gap between truck drivers and shippers.As positions among stakeholders remain starkly divided, debates over the achievements and limitations of the Safe Freight Rate System—which was implemented from 2020 to 2022—continue to be a contentious issue today. Against this backdrop, this article examines the positive and negative aspects of the Safe Freight Rate System during its implementation from 2020 to 2022.Read more, Click here

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Goldvan Enters the Refrigerated Box Trailer Market in Earnest

Goldvan Co., Ltd. (CEO: Kim Soo-duk), a specialized vehicle manufacturer leading Korea’s premium box truck market, is strengthening its presence across the logistics and transportation industry by leveraging its differentiated technology and quality competitiveness. Goldvan designs and manufactures a full lineup of logistics special-purpose vehicles in-house, ranging from 1-ton light-duty to 25-ton heavy-duty cargo truck chassis. Its product portfolio includes refrigerated and frozen box trucks, wing bodies, dry box trucks, and refrigerated/frozen wing bodies. The company provides customized special-vehicle solutions tailored to customers’ specific transportation environments and operational needs. Against this backdrop, Goldvan produced a 44-foot refrigerated box trailer in December last year through a collaboration with Korea Trailer Co., the largest trailer manufacturer in Korea, and delivered it to Daewon Cold Storage Transportation Co., Ltd.Read more, Click here

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From 16 Years of Trust with the Old TGA Tractor to the TGX, “I can’t wait to experience all th..

“The moment I first drove the MAN TGA tractor (sold in Korea from 2006 to 2008), my truck-driving career changed completely. The quietness, the power—it was a whole new world. Now, I can’t wait to experience everything MAN has evolved with OptiView,” said Park Chang-won, 60.   Park drives an average of 800 km per day between the Chungcheong and Gyeonggi regions, transporting polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from Yeosu National Industrial Complex.A veteran with 25 years of trucking experience, he considers MAN trucks his lifelong partner. After purchasing the MAN TGA 430 when MAN officially entered the Korean market in late 2006, he drove 2.67 million km over 16 years without a single accident. Even after replacing it with the MAN TGX 510 in April 2023, his trust in the brand remains unwavering.Read more, Click here

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Eco-Friendly Blind Spot, High-Floor Diesel Buses Account for 79% of the Market

The market for high-floor buses remains heavily reliant on diesel and has been slow to transition to eco-friendly alternatives.Despite the government’s implementation of large-scale green transportation initiatives, progress in shifting the high-floor bus segment toward electric or hydrogen models has been limited. Even as prolonged delivery delays for high-floor diesel buses force buyers to wait up to nearly two years for new vehicles, demand has yet to move toward electric or hydrogen buses, highlighting the slow pace of the market’s green transition.Read more, Click here

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