SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's biggest automotive conglomerate Hyundai Motor Group said on Monday that it will form an autonomous driving joint venture with global technology company Aptiv.
Under the deal, Hyundai and Aptiv will have a 50 percent ownership stake respectively in the joint venture, valued at a total of 4 billion U.S. dollars, the South Korean company said in a statement.
Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors and Hyundai Mobis, the group's affiliates, will collectively contribute 1.6 billion dollars in cash, and provide 400 million dollars worth of vehicle engineering services, R&D resources and access to intellectual property.
Aptiv will contribute its autonomous driving technology, intellectual property and about 700 employees focused on the development of scalable autonomous driving solutions.
"The new joint venture marks the start of a journey with Aptiv toward our common goal of commercializing autonomous driving. The combined capabilities of Aptiv, a leading global technology company, and our group, a global OEM, will create invaluable synergy to lead the autonomous driving landscape," said Chung Euisun, executive vice chairman of Hyundai Motor Group.
The joint venture will begin testing fully driverless systems in 2020 and have a production-ready autonomous driving platform in 2022 available for robotaxi providers, fleet operators and automotive manufacturers.
It will advance the design, development and commercialization of SAE Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous driving technologies, Hyundai said. The SAE refers to the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Hyundai has focused on realizing fully autonomous driving as one of its new growth engines. The automaker first began testing driverless vehicles on public roads in the United States in 2015.
The company advanced its trials in urban environments in 2017, and successfully demonstrated Level 4 autonomous driving technology on a highway in early 2018.
