[EVZ Article] Interview with Young-seok Choi, CEO of Charzin 02182019

“It takes more time to authenticate the product than development … hundreds of pages needed for regulated sandbox document”

The Dong-a Ilbo
Arthur: Min-ku Jee (warum@donga.com)
Date: 02–18–2019

“In order to create many successful cases of regulated sandboxes, there need to be better ways to institutionalize start-ups so that they can apply for sandboxes more easily.” said CEO Choi Young-seok. [Source: Charzin]

“I even thought about turning our business model to overseas export, if we weren’t selected for the regulated sandbox application project.”

Choi Young-seok, 47, president of Charzin, a start-up company that I met at an office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on Wednesday, seemed to be the last person to win the race. Charzin, which is a charging platform business for electric vehicles, was selected as the first“Regulatory Sandbox Temporary Permit” project on the 11th. It has been three years since it was founded in April 2016. Twenty-one executives and employees of the store also swept their hearts.

Choi, who is also a professor of Smart Automobile Studies at Sun Moon University, is famous for driving “Seoul City’s №1 electric vehicle supply to the private sector.” When I drove an electric car myself, I found that I had a lot of That’s why he decided to do the charging business. In 2017, the year after its foundation, POSCO Group’s affiliates were invested and supported by Daegu City and the Intelligent Automobile Component Promotion Agency, which succeeded in developing its products in a year. It is a type of electric vending machine called ‘chargeable socket-outlet for charging electric vehicles’. If you install the two-inch device in a 220V outlet in an apartment or a mart underground parking lot, you can easily get an electric charging station.

The business, which seemed to have been unraveled, faced unexpected difficulties. In 2017, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) informed us that the project could not be licensed because it was subject to ‘release of electric power’ under the current Electricity Business Act. It is a violation of the current law that allows Korea Electric Power Corp. to sell electricity.

To make matters worse, the Korea Institute for Mechanical and Electrical Testing (KC) has also been hampered. Because it had never been used before, it took one year and four months to authenticate as it failed to find safety standards. They spent more time getting certifications than developing their products. “I couldn’t sleep because I was worried about reducing salary for my employees,” Choi recalled.

Regulatory sandboxes were a hope for Choi, who was on the verge of giving up his business. The temporary permit will allow businesses to go ahead without being bound by the current law for the next two years. However, he pointed out that the mountain that needs to be overcome to pass the regulation sandbox for reform of regulations is also not easy. “The report, which needs to be prepared directly, has reached hundreds of pages, and the start-up industry seemed unable to even apply for the regulation sandbox,” he said.​

“Although we were able to present our own problems and solutions since last year due to the minutes of meetings with the president’s regulatory reform committee and the deregulation of the business, it is unlikely that the start-up industry will find its own problems and solutions in hundreds of pages of reports,” said Choi. “The government needs to lower entry barriers so that more startups can easily enter the market,” he advised.

He also said, “The government should be free from the rigid idea that it should become a judge of regulations on its own.” The smartest person in Korea is the consumer. If there is a problem with the new business model, consumers can’t survive the wrong start-up because they are either raising their own problems or filing lawsuits.” “We hope the government will play a role of playing a game and watching for problems from the sidelines,” Choi said.

Original source: http://news.donga.com/Economy/3/01/20190218/94165565/1

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