Hyundai join hands with Apple, Google for smart cars

By Choi Sung-jin

As far as smart cars are concerned, the walls between automakers and IT companies are crumbling rapidly. Hyundai Motor, Korea’s largest and the world’s fifth-largest carmaker, is also joining this global trend by cooperating with Apple and Google, industry sources said Tuesday.

Hyundai has installed Apple’s CarPlay system in its new Elantra (Avante in Korea) model introduced to the U.S. market last Tuesday, they said. Hyundai is considering applying the technology to cars sold on the domestic market, too.

CarPlay is an operating system that interlocks smartphones and in-vehicle infotainment, which allows iPhone users to make phone calls, send messages and listen to music while driving. Also, they can manipulate vehicle displays more conveniently through a voice-order system attached to their iPhone.

Under its corporate slogan of “from iron mold to finished vehicle,” Hyundai has vertically integrated everything that goes into the making of a car. So the automaker joining hands with other companies for the development of smart cars is symbolic and significant, the sources said.

The Korean carmaker has also installed Google’s “Android Auto” in its Elantra sedans alongside the CarPlay system. Many other auto models have adopted one of the two systems but few are using them both, they said.

Hyundai made headlines last May by becoming the world’s first automaker to apply Android Auto to its Sonata model in the North American market. GM and other automakers soon followed Hyundai’s example.

“Applying this system in vehicles does not require a high level of technology but not many carmakers can use the systems of Google and Apple at the same time,” said a company official. “It remains to be seen who will take the initiative in the smart car market but Hyundai’s simultaneous application of the two systems is meaningful.”

In addition, Hyundai will invest 2 trillion won ($1.66 billion) into developing a smart car with autonomous driving and state-of-the-art IT by 2018. It is beefing up R&D manpower to that end.

The smart car technology of domestic automakers is three years behind those of foreign competitors,” said Professor Kim Pil-soo of Daelim University College. “In order to secure core technologies and withstand competition, Korean carmakers can’t help but sleep with the enemy.”