South Korea

[bannedgoose]

Here's my experience driving old MS shipped from the States in the Korea as a DoD personnel.

• Centerscreen becomes complete useless. Google map does not work in the Korea. The only way that you can use is by connecting HotSpot from Egg or your cellphone so that your location can be shown in the map. By the way, google map is very outdated, like 2014-2015?
• Supercharger works good. But obviously, it is a lot more compacted and smaller place to visit compare to the States. The charging speed seems slightly slower than the States as well.
• I've been praying for not having any issues with the car since the arrival. Unfortunately, door handle started not working, and one of the window does not roll up automatically. It is so annoying to book the service appointment which is far from now (2-3 months ahead of today).
• Since I don't get a blue license plate, no electric vehicle benefit applies as well. The only way that you could get some discount is to get the Hi-pass from the place that manually register your car as an electric vehicle.
• Charging is a lot more expensive in Korea. To charge my car from 20%-80%, I roughly spend about 15,000 KRW. In the States, I have never paid that much. Gas is cheap in the base, so I see no reason not to drive hybrid vehicle to save the cost.

I would have not brought the car to the country if I knew all of these. However, it is still a great car to drive. I miss the navigation feature of the vehicle, which I used all the time.

I hardly use the onscreen navi because of the only korean and it doesnt have the speed camera notifications.

Which benefitts do blue plates get? Besides I guess cheaper parking and able to drive in bad pollution?

 

[meloccom]

I’m not in Korea, but my experience is that the cost of electricity for any electric car is between 1/3 and 1/2 the cost of fuel for an equivalent ICE Car.
In your case, with a 6 mile commute, that’s 12 miles a day or 60 miles a week. Let’s double that for your weekend use to 120 miles a week. The consumption of a Model 3 SR+ is 272wh/mile (Source) making 33Kw/h weekly.
If we round that up to 40 KWh for vampire drain and the occasional busy weekend simply multiply your cost per KWh by 40 to get a conservative estimate of the cost of fuel.
I pay Aud$0.18 per KWh for electricity so the 40Kwh would cost me Aud$7.20 per week, which is KRW6,140.
You can more accurately calculate the cost by inserting your own figures, but this gives you an idea that fuel cost of any electric car is much cheaper than an equivalent ICE.

 

[bannedgoose]

Any use extension cords here for a 220v? I might have to use one on occasion because parking in Korea is the worst!

 

[kaidou]

well, I wrote my experience in other post. Don't bring the car from US. If your vehicle ever experience any mechanical issue that cannot be fixed easily (i.e., main battery, drive unit, MCU, etc...), then you are fxxked. Tesla Korea will never fix it even if you are willing to pay for it.

 

[ivory_diadems]

The one issue I have is that I did not get the blue license plates when I registered the car since they don't fit the US-SPec bracket. I visited and spoke with Seoul's service centers about getting the long plate bracket, but they would not sell it to me for unknown reasons. I'll appreciate it if any of you has an idea on to get ahold of these brackets.

Any updates on that?

 

[danieldepena]

Hi can anyone from here help me get the ccs1 and chademo adapter? From korea

 

[kaidou]

Hi can anyone from here help me get the ccs1 and chademo adapter? From korea

That won't work in US system. Somebody already tried using CCS adaptor in the States, and it did not work.

 

[danieldepena]

i need 2 chademo

 

[NHK X]

Hi all, just spent some time reading through this whole post. I’m in the military (medical field) and debating requesting a move to Korea. Been there prior at Casey in 2013.

We have dual teslas, 2017 model X and 2021 Model Y perf, can anyone who is there currently with a US build car give an update on supercharging ability, software and service support? Would be under SOFA status as well, as long as I can supercharge I think I will feel pretty good about shipping cars over for our time there. Really appreciate it!

 

[ivory_diadems]

Hi all, just spent some time reading through this whole post. I’m in the military (medical field) and debating requesting a move to Korea. Been there prior at Casey in 2013.

We have dual teslas, 2017 model X and 2021 Model Y perf, can anyone who is there currently with a US build car give an update on supercharging ability, software and service support? Would be under SOFA status as well, as long as I can supercharge I think I will feel pretty good about shipping cars over for our time there. Really appreciate it!

Read my posts

 

[hribarr]

I am moving to Korea next year with my 2018 M3 LR, with my home charger (currently installed in US).
I Read most of the post from last 3 years, but looking for the most updated information, and any experience, with the following:

1) My car is a US spec, and I think all the posts show that Tesla superchargers and destination will work with no adapters - correct as of Sep 2022?
2) Does the new CCS Combo Adapter work to connect CCS DC fast chargers in Korea? CCS Combo 1 Adapter
3) Can I use the same US spec Tesla home charger and have it installed? Any electrical installation condiserations?
4) Does anyone have more information on 25-year rule for reshipment? I won't even ship my car if I can't send it back.
5) Any better luck with Google maps? I was in Korea in July 2022, and saw a 2021 M3 with Google maps working fine. The person who had the car did not use the maps for navigation, since it did not have speed camera locations (essential for driving in Korea). But they worked and did not look like c. 2015 version like another blogger mentioned.

I will be going there as a civilian, living on the economy, so any shipping tips would be useful too.

 

[bannedgoose]

I am moving to Korea next year with my 2018 M3 LR, with my home charger (currently installed in US).
I Read most of the post from last 3 years, but looking for the most updated information, and any experience, with the following:

1) My car is a US spec, and I think all the posts show that Tesla superchargers and destination will work with no adapters - correct as of Sep 2022?
2) Does the new CCS Combo Adapter work to connect CCS DC fast chargers in Korea? CCS Combo 1 Adapter
3) Can I use the same US spec Tesla home charger and have it installed? Any electrical installation condiserations?
4) Does anyone have more information on 25-year rule for reshipment? I won't even ship my car if I can't send it back.
5) Any better luck with Google maps? I was in Korea in July 2022, and saw a 2021 M3 with Google maps working fine. The person who had the car did not use the maps for navigation, since it did not have speed camera locations (essential for driving in Korea). But they worked and did not look like c. 2015 version like another blogger mentioned.

I will be going there as a civilian, living on the economy, so any shipping tips would be useful too.

4) If you are under SOFA you can ship and return. If you're just a normal civilian not government, then I don't think you can ship it. Have you contacted Tesla? I'm not an expert though, mine is "Korean" spec so i doubt I could ship mine even though manufactured in the US. I haven't looked into it enough though cause i don't plan to go back to the US.

5) What do you mean w google maps? Like the navi? I rarely use the navi on screen. I just use Naver map or Kakao map. The on screen works, but its only in Korean and no warning of speed cameras.

 

[bannedgoose]

Anyone know if a Korean Spec works fine in USA?

 

[NHK X]

just another bump to thread, if any one there has any updates on warranty status and ability to pay to get car fixed and Nav working would appreciate it.

 

[ivory_diadems]

just another bump to thread, if any one there has any updates on warranty status and ability to pay to get car fixed and Nav working would appreciate it.

Bringing a car outside homologation area breaches warranty thus you don't get those benefits. I tried, no dice. I tried repeatedly.

Still the car is great and if you do need repairs they are far far far cheaper in SK than the US.

 

[NHK X]

Anyway to pay cash to get center screen and LTE working again with SK mapping?

 

[ivory_diadems]

You can get a new sim card and put it in the car I think. Ask the service center in korea. You need to be fluent. But then that's just for data in the car and there's almost no point since you can just use unlimited data on your phone and stream content thru that and use a better map on that. Just mount your phone next to the screen. Literally everyone here does that. No one uses the center screen map. Use naver or kakao, kakao has English.


Some people use a phone app to stream the phone map TO the center display but it's laggy and sort of complicated. Again no point imo