The Korean automotive industry began its history in 1955 and early manufacturers heavily relied on imported parts. In the 1960s, the South Korean government drove the auto industry development initiative; it also did not allow foreign automakers to operate in Korea unless they formed joined ventures with domestic entities, similar to the current setting in the Chinese auto industry. Since “Pony,” the first Korean-developed automobile by the Hyundai Motors, was produced in 1975, the industry has grown fast and demonstrated strong engineering capabilities in vehicle design, performance, and powertrain. South Korea is now one of the world’s largest car manufacturing countries producing more than 4 million units annually, and almost two thirds of Korean produced cars and trucks are exported worldwide each year [1]. The Korean automotive companies (OEMs) continue to grow rapidly; for instance the Hyundai Motor Group ranks 5th by global sales volume for 2015, having a global market share of approximately 9%.

The development and production of Korea’s own model played an important role in the localization and advancement of its automotive core technologies. However, powertrain components including the emission control systems had not been fully localized in Korea even until exported to the US market in mid-1980s. In 1991, Korean giant auto maker Hyundai finally became an independent developer of engines and transmissions. In the aftertreatment field, the two joint-venture catalyst manufacturers, Hee-Sung with Engelhard (currently BASF) and Ordeg with Degussa (currently Umicore), were established to supply catalyst technologies to Korean automakers. Meanwhile, South Korea’s first comprehensive ambient air quality policy was legislated, practically legislating the emission standards in Korea [2].

Several major updates to the initial emission standards have been introduced in the last two decades, including the adaptation of California’s non-methane organic gases (NMOG) and nitric oxides (NOx) fleet average regulation for gasoline vehicles as well as European standards for diesel platforms, as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

South Korea emission standards. a Light-duty gasoline vehicles. b Light-duty diesel vehicles. c Heavy-duty diesel vehicles [2]. (Courtesy of Dr. Jun-Hong Part at the National Institute of Environment Research, South Korea)

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With a major advancement taking place in the Korean automotive industry in the 2000s, overall product quality improvements gained important milestones, including developing more competitive technologies. Both the manufacturing companies and the parts suppliers invested additional resources in research and development (R&D), enhancing the competitiveness of Korean automotive technologies. Similarly, the two key Korean catalyst joint ventures (named above) expanded their R&D capabilities, focusing on developing advanced technologies to meet the newly tightened emission regulations including SULEV and Euro-V and Euro-VI, generating own intellectual properties while at times licensing their newer technologies to the parent catalyst companies. Despite such advancements, the global market share of the Korean automotive catalyst industry remained below 10% as its customers were merely limited to domestic manufacturers [1].

Until recently, the advancement of automotive catalyst technologies in Korea had been largely driven via multiple industry-government initiatives since 1992. In 1997, there was a big consortium established among major OEMs, suppliers, and research institutes on diesel aftertreatment technology development funded by the Korean government to prepare upcoming Euro 3 and 4 regulations. From 2000, many application-oriented programs funded by the Ministry of Environment also awarded suppliers and national research laboratories, which enabled the Korean manufactured aftertreatment systems to be Euro 5 and 6 compliant. However, fundamental developments in emission control science and technology and in automotive catalysis occupied relatively scarce areas of research within the Korean academic institutions due to the lack of financial support on basic science research from government or industry. Professor In-sik Nam’s group at Pohang University of Science and Technology was the only research group in Korea actively pursuing research in automotive catalysis until he retired in 2015.

Following adoption of stricter fuel economy regulations in the global automotive industry, there appears to be a strong need for breakthroughs in low-temperature catalyst development and emission reduction paired with fuel efficient advanced combustion technologies. Such needs in Korea are also driven by advances in engine technologies including in low-temperature combustion offering significant improvements in fuel economy while needing lower NOx emissions. Likewise, meeting more stringent emission standards such as LEV-III and EU-6d under lower exhaust temperatures raise major concerns in reducing NOx as well as in hydrocarbon and CO emissions.

Given such newer and more significant challenges, ten South Korean university members have teamed up with domestic industry partners such as Hyundai Motor Group and Hee-Sung Catalysts to apply a multi-institutional Engineering Research Center (ERC) for “Development of Super Ultra Low Energy & Emission Vehicle” [3]. In 2016, the Korean government, via its Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, awarded the Korea University (http://www.korea.ac.kr) in Seoul, Korea a 7-year, 14 million dollar grant to establish the ERC, in order to encourage developing broad capabilities in low-temperature emission control science and technology [4], radically transforming the emission control competencies of Korean auto industries. Research areas include catalyst development for low-temperature hydrocarbon and lean NOx control, particulate mitigation, coating technologies, and model-based aftertreatment control development.

Moving forward, one can anticipate endless efforts from all Korean automotive manufacturers, suppliers, and academic institutions to maintain growing momentum and competitiveness in the global automotive industry. Particularly, the recent government-funded emission control initiative is providing a venue to the industry to collaborate with academic institutions to resolve long-term challenges, to produce the technology and value needed for South Korea’s sustainable position in the global auto industry and in the emission control arenas.