Hyundai Motor CTO Dismissal Caused by 'Development Confusion'... R&D Restructuring Focuses on 'SW-HW Decoupling'

R&D Head Replaced After 6 Months... Unusual Personnel Move Raises Speculation
Criticism and Power Struggles Abound
Software-Centered Car Development Expected to Accelerate

Hyundai Motor Company and Kia are drawing attention to the background and direction as they announce a major overhaul of their research and development (R&D) organization after about six months. It is considered unusual to replace the head of an R&D organization responsible for long-term projects within just six months.

On the 28th, Hyundai Motor and Kia announced that President Kim Yong-hwa, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), will step down to become an advisor, and they plan to pursue a complete reorganization of the R&D organization targeting January next year. President Kim was appointed as the newly established CTO in June, but he was effectively dismissed after only six months.

Inside and outside the company, there are rumors regarding the departure of the six-month-old CTO and the ongoing R&D organizational restructuring, such as "a disciplinary personnel move due to confusion in the vehicle software development process" and "a political personnel move resulting from a power struggle with President Song Chang-hyun, who leads FortyTwoDot and the SDV headquarters."

Over the past year, there has been continuous noise surrounding R&D personnel changes at the company. Before the year-end personnel changes last year, Chu Gyo-ung, Vice President and Head of Hyundai Motor Infotainment Development Center, and Jang Woong-jun, Executive Director and Head of the Autonomous Driving Business Division, left the company. Both fields are considered important pillars related to future mobility. It was rare for key R&D personnel to leave all at once under Chairman Chung Eui-sun’s leadership.

In particular, the fact that such personnel changes occurred after President Song Chang-hyun joined Hyundai Motor and Kia’s R&D organization in 2021 adds weight to the possibility of a power struggle. President Song is an engineer who worked in software development at Apple and Microsoft and is regarded as a trusted figure by Chairman Chung. Before joining Hyundai Motor, he served as CTO of Naver and founded FortyTwoDot, which develops autonomous driving solutions.

Despite the organizational restructuring in June, there are criticisms that R&D synergy has not materialized. Currently, Hyundai Motor and Kia’s software development is divided among the group’s global software center FortyTwoDot, the CTO-led organization within Hyundai Motor and Kia, and the SDV headquarters. Externally, they claim to have close collaboration, but internally, it was almost a competitive system. Because the organization was fragmented, synergy effects were reduced, and it was difficult to identify responsibility when problems occurred. Practical issues also arose, such as needing approval from each organization to collaborate.

Recently, Hyundai Motor and Kia have been struggling with mass recalls of the new Grandeur due to software defects and the delay in launching the Kia EV9 equipped with Level 3 autonomous driving technology. Future mobility, which is transitioning to SDV (Software-Defined Vehicle), places greater importance on software development and verification than ever before. If proper development and verification are not conducted, the potential risk of large-scale software defects and recalls increases. Accordingly, the need for a large-scale R&D organizational overhaul centered on software personnel has emerged.

With President Kim’s resignation, President Song’s influence is expected to grow further. There are also forecasts that software-centered research and development will accelerate. Next month’s R&D organizational restructuring at Hyundai Motor and Kia is expected to begin by unifying the previously dispersed software development personnel. At the same time, organizational restructuring will be carried out in a direction that separates software (SW) and hardware (HW) in vehicle development.

President Song has long advocated for the ‘decoupling’ of development. Traditional vehicle development has proceeded by first developing hardware such as the chassis or engine and then layering software on top. However, President Song has emphasized that vehicle development in the SDV era begins with separating hardware and software. This approach not only speeds up development but also shortens the verification period, making rapid R&D response the core goal of the organizational restructuring.

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