Uber drives deeper into South Korea to take on Kakao Mobility

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An Uber logo is seen on a sign outside the company's headquarters

Image Credits: Josh Edelson / AFP / Getty Images

After seeing double-digit growth in South Korea, Uber Technologies has announced a strategic plan to double down in the country — directly challenging market leader Kakao Mobility, the ride-hailing unit majority-owned by South Korean messaging and tech giant Kakao.

Uber chief executive officer Dara Khosrowshahi outlined the plans in a press conference in Seoul, where he also kicked off a campaign to grow the company’s pool of drivers in the country.

That will need to be a major effort. Currently Korea’s ride-hailing industry is dominated by Kakao Taxi, Kakao Mobility’s consumer service, with more than 23 million registered users and a 98% market share, per Statista.

Khosrowshahi also added that Uber plans to expand its partnerships with Korean car technology companies, just as it has done in other markets.

It’s been especially active on that front recently. Last week, Cruise, General Motors’s self-driving subsidiary, signed a multi-year partnership with Uber to bring its robotaxis to the ride-hailing platform in 2025. Uber announced this week it had made a strategic investment in Wayve, a U.K.-based startup that develops software for autonomous driving. Uber already works with Korea’s Hyundai in other markets like Europe.

Uber ramping up in South Korea is the latest chapter in the drama that is the country’s ride-hailing market.

Although Uber has gained notoriety around the world for how it has head-butted with regulators, in South Korea, more recently it has been the home-grown dominant player that has had that dubious honor.

The country’s antitrust watchdog Fair Trade Commission fined Kakao Mobility $20 million for manipulating its algorithms to favor its own taxi franchise in February 2023. However, it did not file a complaint with the prosecution then.

But in December last year, South Korean authorities asked the antitrust regulator to file a complaint against Kakao Mobility for algorithm manipulation favoring its own cabs, a repeat of the issue in February 2023. (For background, the Kakao app lets both franchise and non-franchise taxis pick up ride requests. Even if non-franchise taxis are closer, franchise taxis can still receive requests from clients.)

Uber has not escaped controversy in the country.

Uber opened for business in South Korea a decade ago, and soon after that, taxi drivers began to organize protests over what they saw as a threat to their livelihood. Seoul city authorities eventually announced it would ban the service in late 2013.

It began those steps months later — although Uber did not completely exit the market. In 2020, it set up a joint venture with TMAP Mobility, a ride-hailing unit of local carrier SK Telecom, to make a comeback in the country. The following year, the JV company, called UT, launched its taxi-hailing service.

Then, while still remaining a JV, that rebranded as Uber Taxi this March.

As a minor player with likely less than 10% of the market when you count up other hopefuls, Uber has found itself the underdog in the country, but growth is coming at a fast clip at the moment. Uber this week said the number of passengers increased by almost 80% in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period last year. Since the rebranding, there has also been a double increase in usage from international travelers.

Porsche Ventures invests in battery startup South 8 to boost cold-weather EV performance

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An electric vehicle charges in the snow.

Image Credits: SOPHIE-CARON / Getty Images

All cars suffer when the mercury drops, but electric vehicles suffer more than most as heaters draw more power and batteries charge more slowly as the liquid electrolyte inside thickens. Drivers in Chicago found this out the hard way last January after many Teslas failed to charge during a deep freeze.

One startup, South 8 Technologies, says it can make cold-weather charging more reliable by filling batteries with a pressurized, liquified gas electrolyte instead of a liquid one. In the process, it hopes to slash the cost of lithium-ion batteries by 30%. 

For automakers, if that savings pans out, it might be too good to pass up. “The battery costs about a third of the entire car,” CEO Tom Stepien told TechCrunch. 

South 8 claims that its manufacturing technique can reduce the size of some of the costliest parts of a battery factory. And by injecting gas under pressure into the cell, South 8 can prevent the electrolyte from freezing until -100 degrees C, well below the point at which nearly every other solvent has turned into a solid.

“At -40 degrees C, we retain 75% of the energy capacity,” Stepien said. “Everything else is a brick.”

The company recently attracted new funding from Porsche Ventures in the form of a SAFE note, which will be applied to a Series B round that the company is starting to raise. Stepien said he could not disclose the size of Porsche Ventures’ investment.

Porsche Ventures appeared primarily interested in South 8’s low-temperature performance, Stepien said. “They want to keep their finger on the pulse of where things are headed,” he said. LG, Anzu Partners and Lockheed are prior investors. The startup was spun out of research at UC San Diego, which is basically an EV paradise — it last froze there in 1963.

South 8’s core technology, which it calls LiGas, is based on a gas that is most commonly used as a refrigerant. (Early scientific work published by the founding team suggests it’s difluoromethylene, otherwise known as R-32.) Getting the pressurized electrolyte into the cell, though, presents a couple challenges. First, the approach only works with cylindrical cells, the sort used in Teslas, Rivians and Lucids. Today, most automakers use prismatic or pouch cells. Stepien said that the company would consider applying the technology to prismatic cells in the future because they have a rigid can, but pouch cells do not, so they’re off the table.

In cylindrical cells, South 8’s pressurized electrolyte requires the end caps to be stronger. The top cap also has to be welded on, and it requires a new design to include a valve through which the electrolyte is injected. 

All that means different equipment, which poses a hurdle to adoption given the billions that battery manufacturers have invested in their gigafactories. Still, Stepien hopes that South 8’s technology will ultimately translate into savings that are too big to ignore.

For one, Stepien said South 8’s technology will speed production time because it can reduce the formation cycle, in which batteries are first charged and discharged. The process can take days, and it helps form a layer atop the anodes that helps the battery reach its potential. Stepien said South 8 can reduce that time by 90%.

“Our standard protocol here was about 100 hours for cells we make for our customers. We’ve done tests, and we’ve seen no difference in performance with 10 hours,” Stepien said. The gas in the cells is itself a potent greenhouse gas, generating over 600 times more global warming than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide, according to the IPCC. Should billions of cells be manufactured with the electrolyte, battery recyclers will need to add new steps to their process to ensure the gas doesn’t escape to the atmosphere. Recyclers have similar protocols for handling air conditioning and refrigerator compressors, though on a much smaller scale. Still, if South 8 can help develop a recycling solution while also reducing the number of cells needed for cold-climate EVs, their liquified gas electrolyte could be a net benefit for the climate.

Correction: The headline has been updated to note that Porsche Ventures is the investor.