Hyundai Motor denies alliance with Uber
By Jhoo Dong-chan
Officials of the U.S.-based global online car-sharing company Uber visited Hyundai Motor’s R&D center in Namyang, Gyeonggi Province, to attend a seminar on autonomous driving technologies.
Hyundai Motor researchers on autonomous driving are holding the seminar for two days until Thursday at the institute.
The seminar is raising speculation that two companies may work together in the future.
A Hyundai official, however, denied some media reports that the two companies have recently decided to tie up over the introduction of an autonomous driving taxi.
“Uber officials showed interest in our autonomous vehicle technologies,” said a Hyundai official. “However, two companies haven’t agreed with each other to carry out any projects. It was a hype.”
It is, however, believed that Uber’s interest in Hyundai Motor reflects the automaker’s recent achievements in the related technologies.
Hyundai Motor’s EQ900 and G80 sedans are equipped with partial autonomous driving technologies such as “automatic emergency brake” and “highway driving assistance” system.
In March, the automaker’s luxury division Genesis got approval to test the nation’s first fully autonomous vehicle on the street, and has since carried out the operation.
Industry insiders expect full autonomous-driving vehicles to hit the street in the near future.
Established in 2010, Uber is a multinational transportation network company with 1 million members in 300 cities across 58 countries. Uber is expected to introduce an autonomous-driving taxi division by 2020, using it mobile application.
If self-driving taxi is introduced, the company is expected to gain huge profits without paying its member drivers.
“We are not considering to produce cars by ourselves. Instead, we will work together with automakers to introduce autonomous taxi,” said Uber founder Travis Kalanick during a conference held in Berlin, Germany.
Alliance between automakers and such companies has been a trend in the market as more people tend to share cars in the future.
GM has recently announced that it will invest $500 million to Uber’s rival Lyft. The two companies are expected to carry out a long-term development project for autonomous call taxi.
The world’s largest automaker Toyota also signed a memorandum of understanding with Uber last month, under which the automaker offers lease deals to Uber drivers.
German premium brand Mercedes Benz has operated a car-sharing service, “Car2Go,” since 2008 while BMW has “Drive Now” service with 450,000 members in Europe.