Hyundai’s New-Generation Fuel-Cell Vehicle to Be First Test Model for Joint Project

Hyundai Motor Company and Aurora, a leader in autonomous vehicle technology, have announced a strategic partnership to bring self-driving Hyundai vehicles to market by 2021. This partnership will incorporate Aurora’s self-driving technology into Hyundai vehicles, starting with models custom-developed and launched in test programs and pilot cities. Over the longer term, Hyundai and Aurora will work to commercialize self-driving vehicles worldwide.

To start, the partnership will focus on the ongoing development of hardware and software for automated and autonomous driving and the back-end data services required for Level 4 automation. Level 4 autonomous vehicles, defined by SAE, can operate without human input or oversight under select conditions. The goal of the partnership is to deploy autonomous driving quickly, broadly, and safely.

“We know the future of transportation is autonomous, and autonomous driving technology needs to be proven in the real world to accelerate deployment in a safe and scalable manner,” said Dr Woong Chul Yang, Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor. “Combining our advanced vehicle technology that embeds the latest safety features with Aurora’s leading suite of Level 4 autonomous technology will advance this revolution in mobility with Hyundai in a leadership position.”

Hyundai and Aurora share the common vision of improving safety and mobility on the world’s roads, and together bring the skills and experience required to successfully introduce this technology at scale. For nearly 50 years, Hyundai has been a leader in vehicle design, safety, and manufacturing, catapulting the company to become one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers together with its Kia Motors Corporation affiliate.

For the past two decades, Aurora’s founders have spearheaded the self-driving revolution, building teams and pioneering modern machine learning techniques now on the cusp of transforming transportation. Together, Hyundai and Aurora will move quickly to bring self-driving technology to market around the world.

“Aurora is excited to partner with Hyundai Motor to make the social benefits of self-driving available globally,” said Dr Chris Urmson, CEO of Aurora. “This partnership combines Hyundai’s strengths in vehicle design, safety, and manufacturing with Aurora’s expertise in self-driving technologies to make a positive difference in the world.”

Hyundai Motor’s partnership with Aurora is part of the company’s ongoing efforts towards realizing fully autonomous driving. Hyundai first began testing autonomous vehicles on public roads of the USA in 2015, having been granted a license by the state of Nevada. Last year, at the 2017 CES, Hyundai advanced its trials in urban environments, demonstrating self-driving technologies to the public with its autonomous IONIQ models.

Hyundai’s latest new-generation fuel-cell vehicle, which made its official global debut at CES 2018 earlier this month, will become the first model to be utilized in the test processes starting this year. The fuel-cell powertrain will offer an ideal platform to implement autonomous driving technologies, which requires a massive amount of power to support a large amount of data communication as well as the operation of hardware such as sensors. Hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles will be able to provide a stable electric power supply without concerns about driving range.