Every automaker is working on autonomy and come early 2020’s, its going to be a critical checkbox to tick for customers. Hyundai Motor Company has teamed up with Aurora, a leader in autonomous vehicle technology, announcing self-driving Hyundai vehicles will be on the market by 2021.
Hyundai vehicles will use Aurora technology (hardware, software and back-end data services) to deliver Level 4 autonomy. Level 4 autonomous vehicles defined by SAE can operate without human input or oversight under select conditions. The goal of the partnership is to deploy autonomous driving quickly, broadly and safely.
It is this autonomous technology that will actually solve our texting and driving and drink driving issues, by removing the requirement for humans to operate the vehicle. This will free the driver to do any task they wish, safely, while being driven to their destination. Level 5 is the ultimate goal and one that many others are shooting for around the 2020/2021 timeline.
Expect to see test programs and pilot cities, before a retail release, and in the long-term, Hyundai and Aurora will do what many other auto makers are planning for, the commercialisation of self-driving vehicles worldwide.
Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor, Dr. Woong Chul Yang said,
“We know the future of transportation is autonomous, and autonomous driving technology needs to be proven in the real-world to accelerate deployment in a safe and scalable manner.”
“Combining our advanced vehicle technology that embeds the latest safety features with Aurora’s leading suite of Level 4 autonomous technology will advance this revolution in mobility with Hyundai in a leadership position.”
Hyundai and Aurora share the common vision of improving safety and mobility on the world’s roads, and together bring the skills and experience required to successfully introduce this technology at scale. For nearly 50 years, Hyundai has been a leader in vehicle design, safety and manufacturing, catapulting the company to become one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers together with its Kia Motors Corporation affiliate.
For the last two decades, Aurora’s founders have spearheaded the self-driving revolution, building teams and pioneering modern machine learning techniques now on the cusp of transforming transportation. Together, Hyundai and Aurora will move quickly to bring self-driving technology to market around the world.
CEO of Aurora, Dr. Chris Urmson said,
“Aurora is excited to partner with Hyundai Motor to make the social benefits of self-driving available globally.”
“This partnership combines Hyundai’s strengths in vehicle design, safety and manufacturing with Aurora’s expertise in self-driving technologies to make a positive difference in the world.”
Hyundai first began testing autonomous vehicles on public roads of the USA in 2015, having been granted a license by the state of Nevada. Last year at the 2017 CES, Hyundai advanced its trials in urban environments, demonstrating self-driving technologies to the public with its autonomous IONIQ models.
Hyundai’s latest new-generation fuel-cell vehicle, which will make its official global debut at CES 2018 next week, will become the first model to be utilised in the test processes starting this year.
The fuel-cell powertrain will offer an ideal platform to implement autonomous driving technologies, which requires a massive amount of power to support the large amount of data communication as well as the operation of hardware such as sensors. Hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle will be able to provide a stable electric power supply without concerns about driving range.
