Hyundai plans to make the next big step in the automobile industry by designing a fully autonomous car which will hit the markets in 2030. In the words of South Korean automaker’s senior official:
“We aim to provide partially automated driving in 2015, highly automated driving in 2020 and fully automated driving in 2030”.
Autonomous or self-driving cars are a result of advanced computer systems and networking. Cars today are equipped with rear-facing cameras, hazard sensors, and vehicle operating systems which make them partially autonomous. In the past, technology from Audi and Mercedes-Benz as well as Google android auto and Apple’s car contributed towards the idea of self-driving vehicles. But the work on fully autonomous cars is still in progress.
Hyundai intends to equip its forthcoming car (probably Genesis) with a highway driving assist system and a traffic jam assist system. Currently, the only vehicle from Hyundai with autonomous technology is Genesis, which uses an auto-brake feature.
The company is expected to invest 80.7 trillion Won (61.4 billion Euros, $73.3 billion) in the smart automotive industry and set up new factories in China and Russia for the development of new smart cars.