Don’t Chuck Your Driver’s License Just Yet, Hyundai Chief Says
Hyundai Motor Co., said in February it would spend 14.7 trillion won ($12 billion) in future-growth projects.
(Bloomberg) -- Hyundai Motor Group’s de facto leader said the company’s autonomous vehicles may be on the road in three years but it’s going to take more time for people to get rid of their driver’s license.
Executive Vice Chairman Chung Euisun, 48, who’s gradually been taking over from his 81-year-old chairman father, has been overseeing the transformation of the South Korean automotive giant to prepare the family business for the industry’s major technology disruptions. He took a big step toward getting Hyundai ready for the robocar revolution when the group announced this week its biggest push yet into the field -- the creation of a $4 billion venture with Aptiv Plc.
Hyundai Motor Co., the flagship company of the group, said in February it would spend 14.7 trillion won ($12 billion) in future-growth projects, including autonomous-driving technologies and electric vehicles.
Chung sat for a half-hour interview soon after the Aptiv deal was announced. The following excerpts from the interview have been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
What’s taking robocars so long?
Chung: We’re still going through a lot of trial and error in terms of the regulations that are coming in place. It’s not about showing off your technology. We want to make things more convenient and safe. That’s why it can’t be just one single company owning all of this technology, it has to be all players within the ecosystem. What’s important is: Can you meet regulations set by the government and standards set by insurance companies? That’s why this isn’t going to happen quickly and will take some time. If you think about level four or five technology (the highest levels of self-driving autonomy), achieving that in a city like Delhi in India is different from achieving that in Palo Alto, California. So we want to make sure that we achieve level four or five in a city like Delhi. That’s our ultimate goal. That’s why there’s still a long way to go.
So how much will these cars cost?
Chung: The technology is costly, and therefore, perhaps by 2022, we won’t be able to lower the price of these vehicles as much as customers would like. But we will want to apply these technologies to a variety of models, whether it’s electric vehicles or combustion engine models or diesel. And through that process, we will be able to make the effort to lower the cost.
Why Aptiv?
Chung: We met with many other companies but we were confident that Aptiv was really the best partner for us. There are many companies that are working on autonomous driving but many companies have different goals from what we have.
How long will this seed money last?
Chung: I think this is something that we will continue to discuss in our board-of-directors meetings perhaps down the line. These are decisions that we will be able to discuss because profit is very important for us as well.
To contact the reporters on this story: Craig Trudell in New York at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net;Kyunghee Park in Singapore at kpark3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net, Angus Whitley, Michael Tighe
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