Hyundai Motor to make fully autonomous car by 2030

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Sun, October 22, 2017 | 17:24

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Hyundai Motor to make fully autonomous car by 2030

Posted : 2015-11-18 17:35

Updated : 2015-11-18 17:35

By Park Jin-hai

Kwon Moon-sik, Hyundai Motor Group vice chairman

Hyundai Motor's top executive during a meet-the-customer event said it will produce fully-autonomous cars by 2030.

Kwon Moon-sik, Hyundai Motor Group vice chairman, said that the company's autonomous driving technology is advanced in comparison to that of Google's during the Maum (Heart) Dream event Hyundai organized to enhance communication with its customers.

"The Google driverless car employs a rotating rooftop camera, but Hyundai cars have a three-dimensional scanning system," he said, stressing that Hyundai's technological prowess before 200 guests arrived, mainly engineering university students, at The K Hotel, in southern Seoul, Monday.

"We forecast Hyundai will realize highly autonomous driving by 2020 and fully-autonomous driving by 2030," he added.

Starting with the EQ900, a luxury sedan to be launched next month under the Genesis brand, Hyundai will produce a partially autonomous driving car with highway driving assist. The feature, as an early stage of autonomous driving, incorporates advanced smart cruise control, a lane keeping system and navigation information, enabling the car to maintain a fixed distance from the vehicle in front of it without the driver doing anything.

Hyundai's new hybrid model AE, which will debut early next year, will rival the Toyota Prius, according to Kwon. "Huyndai will manufacture a compact hybrid model by the end of the year, which will be launched here early next year," he said. "Our AE model will be totally a different hybrid car. It will have top-level fuel efficiency, driving performance and green technology," he added, directly challenging the industry leading Toyota Prius.

As for Hyundai's electric vehicle technology, Kwon said that extending the range is the focus, adding that Hyundai is now working on developing a solid-state battery that is smaller than other types of batteries as well as solving the problem of the car overheating and exploding. Hyundai is developing the battery in close cooperation with LG Chem and SK Energy.

Hinting that the EVs it will launch early next year will have the best ranges yet, he predicted, "Three to four years from now, we will have developed EVs that can run more than 300 kilometers with a single charge."

Meanwhile, nearly 1,200 people applied on-line to participate in the event. Following the event, other executives, including Kwak Jin, executive vice president of the domestic sales division, and chief designer Peter Schreyer, will hold talks with customers.

Earlier, Hyundai Motor President Kim Choong-ho met with Hyundai customers.

jinhai@koreatimes.co.kr