ROME – Hyundai looks straight to the future to transform itself from an automobile manufacturer to a provider of mobility solutions. The two technologies on which the Korean group is building the entire development strategy towards new mobility are in fact the fully autonomous driving car and the electric vertical take-off aircraft.
The electric Ioniq 5 with level 4 autonomous driving, therefore capable of moving independently and without a driver on board, will enter service by 2023 thanks to the technology developed by Motional, a company created by Hyundai itself in a joint venture with Aptiv Autonoumus Driving . The self-driving Ioniq 5 without driver will be introduced as a robotaxi in the fleet of Lyft, a leading operator in shared paid rides with a driver of the ride-hailing type, which in the US today also involve non-professional car owners as drivers.
The record of the electric Kona: 790 km with a full tank of energy
The Ioniq 5 robotaxi is easily recognizable from the outside by the visible technological equipment and moves autonomously even in traffic thanks to over 30 sensors and a combination of cameras, radar and lidar that provide a complete perception of the environment and external circumstances even for a long time and very long range. Motional’s technology that manages their movements and guarantees driving safety is based on artificial intelligence logics developed with deep-learning and already trained thanks to the processing of data relating to decades of traffic analysis in real driving conditions.
Self-driving robotaxi, the future is now
by Federico Pesce
To enter the future market for vertical take-off and landing urban air travel from 2028, Hyundai has also set up the new Supernal company, an evolution of the group’s previous Urban air mobility division. Supernal has the task of integrating advanced air mobility solutions with existing transport networks, in order to offer urban travel possibilities that integrate different means, from private cars, to traditional public transport and up to the plane. All with the use of a single planning and ticket purchase tool for the entire journey, which is currently identified in a single app for smartphones, such as those already existing for booking and paying for the individual travel arrangements.
A crucial point for the integration of air mobility with traditional land and underground ones is the availability of vertiporti, an unprecedented type of urban airports dedicated to vertical take-off vehicles, which will have to find a place in the cities of the next decades. The first flying vehicle of the Supernal will be an electric aircraft capable of carrying four or five passengers on urban routes with autonomous driving capability, prefigured by the Supernal S-1 prototype presented in 2020 in the USA at Ces in Las Vegas. The certification process of the Hyundai Supernal urban aircraft will be launched in 2024 and the birth of a real market for urban air transport, integrated with surface mobility, is foreseen by Hyundai for the next decade.
.