Ride Tesla FSD with Socar...Kicking Off Autonomous Driving with Proprietary Data

When I sat in the driver's seat and set the destination on the navigation, a blue "Assisted Driving Start" button appeared along with the route to the destination. After clicking the button, the steering wheel started to move on its own and the vehicle immediately began driving. Even though the reporter in the driver's seat did not touch the pedals or steering wheel throughout the test, the car drove smoothly all the way to the preset destination.

Socar has added the Tesla Model S and Model X to the list of vehicles available through "Socar Subscription," its weekly and monthly vehicle subscription service. Both models allow use of Tesla's supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. Last month, Socar opened pre-orders for subscription to these two FSD-equipped models, and over 2,000 applications were received during the ten-day pre-order period.

During a 30-minute test drive on the afternoon of the 27th, the FSD in the Tesla Model X demonstrated driving stability to the extent that it could be considered better than a human driver. The test drive took place in Seongsu-dong, an area typically crowded with vehicles and heavy traffic, but there was not a single instance of sudden braking or acceleration. The system recognized road conditions, smoothly changed lanes to less congested routes, and slowed down when other cars cut in. When the traffic light changed from green to yellow, the vehicle reduced speed and prepared to stop. In right-turn situations, it identified pedestrians and pedestrian signals, moving only when no one was crossing.

The vehicle not only followed the optimal route based on the navigation system and current traffic, but also correctly distinguished complex exits and entrances in ramp areas with many junctions. There are five driving modes-Sloth, Comfort, Standard, Fast, and Mad Max-and the driving speed and style vary according to the user's selection. If an unexpected situation occurs while driving or if the FSD does not function properly, the driver can immediately intervene by steering, braking, or accelerating. In this case, the FSD automatically disengages.

The Tesla Model S and Model X with FSD available from Socar are currently offered only as weekly or monthly subscription products, with the option to extend the subscription as needed. The subscription fees for both models, including insurance, are 1,490,000 won per week and 3,990,000 won per month. According to industry sources, Socar is the only major rental car company to introduce Teslas equipped with supervised FSD. Some long-term rental companies own Tesla vehicles, but most offer them only in the form of leases or long-term rentals with contract periods of one to two years or more.

Socar is also considering providing the Model S and Model X equipped with FSD as part of its car-sharing service. In this case, users would be able to rent either model by the hour as needed and utilize FSD.

Socar is also working to secure its own autonomous driving technology. Tesla's FSD collects road conditions and driver information through multiple cameras installed in the vehicle and trains artificial intelligence (AI) models with this data, and according to Socar, its approach is the same. This enables the company to secure the data that is crucial in the era of autonomous vehicles. A Socar representative stated, "We are collecting real-time road information from Socar vehicles driving across the country," and added, "Only Tesla and Socar have secured driving data at this scale worldwide."

Each of Socar's approximately 25,000 vehicles nationwide is equipped with front and rear two-channel black boxes and a proprietary telematics device (STS). The STS transmits more than 100 types of vehicle data such as speed, steering, braking, and acceleration to a central server in real time. The total daily driving distance for these vehicles reaches 1.1 million kilometers, which is ten times the total length of all roads in Korea, 110,000 kilometers. The collected data undergoes three processes-anonymization, time synchronization, and tagging based on Vision-Language Model (VLM)-to be refined for immediate use in AI training.

A Socar representative said, "Based on our structural competitiveness for autonomous driving, we plan to gradually implement domestic autonomous mobility services on the same technological foundation as Tesla through technology development and partnerships."

© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.