Hyundai launches self-driving ride-hailing service in South Korea

According to foreign media reports, last year, Hyundai Motor showed its Ioniq 5, a model with Level 4 autonomous driving capabilities.Now the company will use the car to provide self-driving ride-hailing services on public roads in Seoul, South Korea.The city's mayor and another official became the first passengers on Hyundai's RoboRide service, taking a test ride on a route in Gangnam, where the service currently operates only.

However, unlike the fully driverless service already achieved in the US, modern self-driving cars will have safety officers.The company hasn't said when the service will no longer require security officers.Hyundai said its self-driving vehicles, which can seat up to three passengers, will be offered to company employees first.

Users need to call Hyundai's Ioniq 5 self-driving car through an app called iM, which functions similarly to ride-hailing apps like Waymo or Cruise.The app uses artificial intelligence technology from a start-up called Jin Mobility, which is also the developer of the iM app.

Image credit: Hyundai

Woongjun Jang, senior vice president and head of the Autonomous Driving Center at Hyundai Motor Group, said, "Within the Hyundai Motor Group, we are developing advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)-based Level 4 autonomous driving technologies whose functions and safety have been developed through large-scale Production and successful commercialization are proven. We expect the RoboRide pilot service to be an important inflection point that will allow us to internalize autonomous driving technology."

Like other companies in the self-driving ride-hailing business, Hyundai said its biggest takeaway from the project was making the systems work stable enough to eventually integrate it into its production vehicles.

RoboRide will only serve one district in Seoul (there are 25 districts in the city of Seoul) because Hyundai has to work with the local government to make the traffic lights in the district smart so they can communicate with autonomous vehicles.The process began in 2019, and since then the company has been testing its self-driving technology in the Gangnam district, collecting "a lot of data."