Hyundai Motor and Aptiv Joint Venture 'Motional' Achieves Autonomous Driving on Public Roads Without a Driver

Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, a U.S. autonomous driving technology company, have jointly established Motional, which is conducting test drives of driverless autonomous vehicles on public roads.

[Photo by Motional]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and the U.S. autonomous driving technology company Aptiv, announced on the 23rd that it has successfully conducted test drives of driverless autonomous vehicles on public roads.

The test drives took place this month in Las Vegas, USA, where Motional explained that multiple driverless autonomous vehicles safely navigated intersections, unprotected turns, and congested situations involving pedestrians and cyclists.

Motional views building user trust as essential for autonomous vehicles and has focused on objectively proving the safety of its driverless autonomous driving system. Prior to this test drive, Motional underwent autonomous driving technology innovation, 1.5 million miles (approximately 2.41 million km) of pre-testing, involvement of hundreds of thousands of personnel, and over 100,000 hours of internal safety evaluation processes.

Furthermore, Motional received certification for the safety of its driverless autonomous driving system from the global testing and certification organization T?V S?D (TUV SUD), verifying its autonomous driving system, technology, and operational capabilities. Typically, driverless autonomous driving technology test drives require a safety operator in the driver’s seat for route confirmation and emergency stops, but no safety operator intervention occurred during Motional’s test drives.

Motional plans to launch the largest-scale fully driverless autonomous driving service with Lyft, a U.S. ride-sharing company, in 2023.

Karl Iagnemma, CEO of Motional, emphasized, "Motional’s technology is the result of decades of innovation, relentless efforts on safety and processes, millions of miles of test driving, and rigorous external verification. This driverless autonomous vehicle test drive on public roads will be an important milestone for safe, reliable, and economical driverless vehicles."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.