Hyundai and Uber Korea to Partner
Fans of ride-sharing will be excited to hear that Uber employees attended Hyundai Motor’s autonomous technology seminar this month, raising speculation that the two companies might be poised to team up in the rapidly emerging self-driving sector.
“It is true that Uber’s working-level employees have joined a two-day autonomous technology seminar held in Hyundai’s research center,” a Hyundai Motor spokesperson told The Korea Herald during a phone interview.
Though the seminar was closed-door, we do know that it was held together with Hyundai’s partner firms at the automaker’s Namyang research and development center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. Neither company has elaborated any further or revealed any details about a possible deal but insiders say that the two industry giants may have discussed a future partnership to supply Hyundai’s self-driving cars to Uber for ride-sharing.
“The two companies can create synergy in their future businesses through the partnership,” said Lee Sang-hyun, an analyst from IBK Investment & Securities. “It will be a good opportunity for Hyundai to secure a stable client of its autonomous cars. For Uber’s part, it may want to lay the groundwork to restart its business via the partnership with the local automaker after failing to run its business [in Korea] due to regulations,” Lee continued.
Recently, Uber said it aims to provide ride-sharing services using autonomous vehicles by the year 2020 by partnering with automakers instead of trying to produce the cars themselves. Hyundai has said it will replace all of its cars with autonomous vehicles by the year 2030. It seems like a perfect marriage between two companies who are actively moving toward uncharted territory.
Hyundai has already rolled out its premium brands (Genesis EQ900 and G80) with their new Highway Driving Assist System, an autonomous technology which keeps the car within its lane and maintains a safe distance from the car ahead. It’s a nascent form of self-driving that the company will only continue to expand upon in the coming years. Market watchers expect that the Highway Driving Assist System will be applied to the automaker’s new Grandeur model in the second half of this year.
All things considered, this seems like a perfect “in” for Uber, which suffered a huge blow in March of 2015 when its car-sharing services were effectively ended by the Korean government’s Passenger Transport Service Act following strong opposition to Uber’s business model from the taxi industry. Earlier this year, Uber Korea rolled out Uber Black, a premium taxi service which connects passengers with taxi drivers through a smartphone app.
Considering the remarkable rate at which autonomous car technology is progressing, we won’t have to wait long to see the preliminary plans for this program emerge.
Of course, nothing replaces driving your own Hyundai with the windows down on a sunny day. Soak up the driving experience at Rosen Hyundai today.
