Share

Kia says fully autonomous cars are ready by 2030

The ADAS System will be developed with other suppliers and affiliated companies, and it will comprise three distinct categories to enable vehicles to drive by themselves, including “Recognition” – the development of new sensors to detect other vehicles and hazards, read the road ahead and identify poor driving conditions; “Judgement” – advanced computing systems allowing the auto to make decisions based on the information gathered by ADAS sensors; “Control” – active electronic and mechanical systems allowing the vehicle to carry out the decisions taken by the autonomous technology in any given situation. The investment will lead to the introduction of Kia’s next-generation smart vehicles in the coming years.

Advertisement

“Hyundai-Kia’s goal is to make [such technology] available at an affordable price”, by optimizing system architecture with production-based sensors, says Tae-Won Lim, Hyundai Motor Group Central Advanced Research and Engineering Institute vice president. The Korean carmaker’s timeline is somewhat more conservative than those of companies like Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, and Tesla, but the announcement still shows that Kia is jumping on the autonomy bandwagon.

In the meantime, the automaker will flawless its various driver assist features as part of its partially-autonomous technologies by 2020.

The company is also working on Lane Guidance System (LGS), Advanced Smart Cruise Control (ASCC), Traffic Jam Assist (TJA) function, Smart Parking Assist System (SPAS), as well as Remote Advanced Parking Assist System (RAPAS). The system will be able to overtake slower cars automatically and keep to the speed limit the thanks to GPS data.

Kia has joined the automakers that have already announced the development of autonomous technologies. The system will also assist in safely overtaking other cars on the motorway.

Looking further down the road, Kia expects to bring its first fully-autonomous vehicle to market by 2030. As a key part of Kia’s development of fully-autonomous driving technologies – the true “self-driving car” – Kia is focusing R&D resources on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication.

Advertisement

By enabling cars to effectively communicate directly and independently with their surroundings, Kia will be able to make ADAS-equipped vehicles as safe and efficient as possible.

Mid-sized models take up 20% of Hyundai's China sales