Hyundai to launch AI-powered EV in China next year

Journalists attend Hyundai Motor's press conference at the 2024 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in April this year. (Hyundai Motor Company)

Hyundai Motor, in collaboration with Chinese partner Haomo, will launch its first Chinese-market-dedicated electric vehicle equipped with generative artificial intelligence technology next year.

“We are working to load the software of Haomo, a local autonomous driving software firm, onto the EV, which will be released in the Chinese market next year,” said a Hyundai Motor official. “The level of autonomous driving is somewhere between 2 and 2.5.”

With a scale of autonomous driving ranging from 0 to 5, Level 2 refers to partial driving automation as the vehicle can control both steering, accelerating and decelerating. Tesla’s Autopilot would fall under Level 2 autonomous driving. Level 3 self-driving vehicles can detect circumstances and make informed decisions for themselves, such as accelerating past a slow-moving vehicle. Levels 2 and 3 both require human override.

Haomo unveiled its DriveGPT in April last year, drawing inspiration from OpenAI’s world-famous ChatGPT. The Chinese company explained that the generative AI model can continuously optimize autonomous vehicles' real-time decision-making ability on roads by introducing data about situations where human drivers take over control of the vehicle.

Haomo said DriveGPT has been used in about 20 models. The Chinese self-driving startup raised $14 million in a series B funding in February this year.

China has surged as one of the front runners in terms of EV adoption rate. EVs made up 37 percent of new vehicles sold in the country last year. The EV share is projected to surpass 50 percent this year.

The Chinese EV market has been dominated by BYD, a China-based EV dark horse looking to dethrone Tesla as the biggest EV maker in the world. According to Autovista24, BYD accounted for a 33.8 percent market share to claim the top spot for a third consecutive year in China last year. Tesla followed in second place with a 7.5 percent market share.

Hyundai Motor, which has scored little to almost no success in the Chinese EV market, joined Beijing Motor to set up a 50-50 joint venture to develop a China-exclusive EV brand. In June last year, the Korean automaker announced a plan to launch up to five EVs in China through 2026.

By Kan Hyeong-woo(hwkan@heraldcorp.com)