Hyundai Motor Group followed up its announcement it had agreed a US$4bn tie-up with Ireland-based components supplier Aptiv by revealing, at a separate news conference with South Korean journalists in New York, plans to begin production of autonomous vehicles by 2024, as it looked to take an early lead in bringing self-driving technologies to global markets.
The announcement was made in the US by Hyundai executive vice-chairman Chung Euisun.
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As it revealed with the Aptiv JV announcement, the leading South Korean automaker said the 50/50 joint venture with Aptiv would be based in Boston, Massachusetts, and headed by Karl Iagnemma, president of Aptiv’s Autonomous Mobility division. It would develop a self-driving platform and have technology centres across the US and Asia, including South Korea. Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv would each appoint an equal number of directors to govern the joint venture.
The joint venture would combine Aptiv’s advanced Level 4 and 5 self-driving technologies and Hyundai’s engineering and R&D capabilities. It would begin testing fully driverless systems in 2020 and have a production-ready autonomous driving platform available for robotaxi providers, fleet operators and automotive manufacturers in 2022.
Chung Euisun, the only son of chairman Chung Mong-koo and heir apparent to the Hyundai Motor Group, was quoted as saying “we expect the era of autonomous vehicles to come early, with customers able to go anywhere they want in a driverless car from 2030”.
This was in line with the automaker’s stated strategy to become a mobility solutions provider of the future.
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By GlobalDataUnder Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) standards, Level 4 automation allows a vehicle to drive itself under limited conditions, but Level 5 means a vehicle can drive itself under any conditions.
At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, Hyundai’s technology affiliate Hyundai Mobis introduced its M.VISION Level 4 self-driving concept car.
