The government plans to establish a new team under the Transportation Ministry to exclusively support self-driving and eco-friendly cars, according to officials Wednesday.

The ministry said it plans to create a high-tech auto technology division in May at the latest, with the aim of backing the autonomous and eco-friendly vehicle industry, which is still at a nascent stage here.

“We plan to separately manage autonomous car technologies, which have so far been supervised together with other segments such as car insurance, utilization and standards,” said Kim Young-hae, an official at the ministry’s creative administration division.

The creation of the new team is in line with the ministry’s latest efforts to boost the smart car technologies.

It has recently allocated 18 billion won ($15 million) for the pilot project of the cooperative intelligent transport systems, which enables cars to communicate with other vehicles to share traffic conditions, sudden stops or falling objects. Starting from July, this one-year pilot project will be carried out on a highway connecting Daejeon to Sejong City.

The push for developing smart car technologies is also being witnessed in other ministries.

The Science Ministry recently announced that it would invest 6.6 billion won this year in smart car technologies, which include autonomous artificial-intelligence technologies.

The Industry Ministry also formed a car convergence alliance in December with Hyundai Motor, LG Electronics, search engine giant Naver and mobile carrier KT to improve future car technologies.

By Shin Ji-hye
(shinjh@heraldcorp.com)