[Photo by Park Sae-jin]
SEOUL, Jan. 05 (Aju News) -- South Korea's top carmaker, Hyundai Motor, has forged a strategic partnership with American autonomous vehicle technology startup Aurora Innovation founded by an ex-Tesla tech officer to put self-driving vehicles on the roads by 2021.
The alliance with Aurora came on the heels of Hyundai's push to develop technologies related to connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). The carmaker invested five million US dollars in a U.S. connected car R&D center in October last year to support the creation of collaborated testing grounds for next-generation cars.
"The goal of the partnership is to deploy autonomous driving quickly, broadly and safely," Hyundai said in a statement on Thursday. Aurora Innovation was founded by Sterling Anderson, a former Tesla man who led the design and development of Tesla Model X and Autopilot, a self-driving technology.
Hyundai aims to bring self-driving vehicles to the market by 2021 through its partnership with Aurora that would focus on developing a Level 4 automation system, the second-highest level of autonomous driving which requires no input from a driver if there are no dangerous situations on the road.
Last month, Hyundai revealed plans to put its autonomous cars and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) on test-driving before and during South Korea's first Winter Olympics to be held in February in the eastern ski resort of Pyeongchang.
Hyundai Motor and Aurora plan to select an optimal smart city, connected through the internet of things, for the testing of self-driving and other technologies. Hyundai will use its hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in a testing program. Aurora has been allowed to start testing driverless cars on public roads in California.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
