South Korea has introduced the world ' s first commercial wireless electric vehicle Tuesday at a theme park in Seoul, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Tuesday.

The "On-line Electric Vehicle,"(OELV) which debuted at the Seoul Grand Park as one of its seven shuttles, charges its electricity from power strips built five centimeters underground, instead of rails or overhead wires, as it can recharge while running, becoming the world's first commercial vehicle to successfully utilize such technology, the Seoul City Hall said in a statement.

The OELVs don't require any recharge stations or batteries on the vehicle to run, saving time and space as well as production costs, it added, as it is becoming a very viable technology in the electric car industry.

It added, the OELVs carry batteries one-fifth the size of those currently used in other electric vehicles, but it is for emergency situations only.

The new technology was developed in cooperation with the state- funded (South) Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), who said Tuesday's announcement could be a groundbreaking discovery in the electric vehicle field, as a number of research institutions and labs have failed to produce similar results in the past.

The Seoul government said it expects to apply the new technology to city buses from as early as next year, following trial operations, with plans of switching all buses and taxis to ' green-cars' by 2020.

(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2010)