Motional's self-driving taxi runs in Las Vegas. The company is a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv. Courtesy of Hyundai Motor Group
Hyundai Motor Company and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance will lead the government’s first citywide autonomous vehicle testing this year, aiming to develop the country’s first production model that integrates manufacturing, insurance and platform operations under a single system.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said Monday that Hyundai Motor Company will manufacture software defined vehicles (SDVs) for the road test to be done in Gwangju starting in May. The automaker will also develop and operate online platforms behind the self-driving operation. Samsung Insurance will design and control insurance policies for possible accidents involving the vehicles.
The government selected the companies to do the test out of 11 that applied for the opportunity. The Korea Transportation Safety Authority, which is under the ministry, will oversee the test, scheduled to continue for at least two years and expand further with more advanced technologies and regulations.
The so-called “K-autonomous driving collaboration model” groups together companies specializing in the manufacturing, insurance and platform operation sectors so that the firms can jointly develop a self-driving ecosystem.
“The self-driving business requires cooperation between carmakers, data build-up, insurance and service operation. Until now, a single developer had to deal with all of these tasks. This prevented companies from advancing their technologies to a detailed level and generating unnecessary burdens for them,” the ministry said in a statement.
Officials from Daejeon and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute celebrate the city's launch of self-driving buses, Jan. 29. Yonhap
“This collaboration model allows self-driving technology developers to maximize their outputs by providing them with a comprehensive package of vehicle, insurance and platform operation system. It’ll boost the industry's artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and global competitiveness.”
Hyundai Motor Company, in addition to developing and providing the SDVs, will provide on-site workers for car maintenance and software development. To support the test’s platform operation, the company will prepare high-speed communication networks, application programming interface and data pipelines.
Samsung Insurance will provide insurance for possible accidents by indemnifying up to 10 billion won ($6.7 million) per accident and as much as 30 billion won per year. The company will set up a call center dedicated to self-driving cars, offering one-stop solutions from insurance registration to reimbursement. Data analysis from the cars’ data recorders and consultations on accident prevention and IT security will also be provided.
Source: Korea Times News
