Hyundai Motor Company formed a partnership with the US-based startup Aurora Innovation to develop self-driving vehicles on January 4th of this year. They plan to introduce the new cars to the market by 2021. One of the self-driving vehicles was already displayed at the Winter Olympics showcase. For around 50 years, Hyundai has been a leader in vehicle design, safety, and manufacturing; Aurora has been a leader in self-driving technology, and is based in Silicon Valley, California, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hyundai and Aurora share the common vision of improving safety and mobility. Sensors and chips in self-driving cars will monitor road conditions and analyze them autonomously. Most Hyundai vehicles sold in the United States are made at manufacturing facilities in Montgomery, Alabama and engineering facilities in Michigan, as well as design, research, and testing grounds in California. Hyundai has leased more than 150 Tucson FCEVs to US customers since 2014. All the leases have been in California, where about 33 hydrogen refueling stations operate. Hyundai USA provides around 5,000 jobs for American automotive workers. Additionally, with every new Hyundai sold in the United States, money is donated to pediatric cancer research.
The United States also offered more opportunities to Hyundai, including a license from the state of Nevada to test autonomous vehicles on public roads in 2015, the first agreement of its kind for Hyundai.
Hyundai also aligned with Cisco to develop in-vehicle networking. The two companies have created a new platform that provides secure access to data in the vehicles. Hyundai and Cisco initiated collaborative development in 2016 and shared the same vision for connected mobility at CES 2017.
Yeseul Oh is a Research Intern at the East-West Center in Washington D.C. and an Asan Wahshington Young fellow with the Asan Academy in Seoul. She is a student of Kyunghee university in South Korea