Transition team chief meets with Hyundai Motor chairman

Ahn Cheol-soo, the chief of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s transition team, and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun met on Friday to discuss the country’s future mobility outlook as well as measures for nurturing and expanding the industry’s workforce.

Ahn and other committee member lawmakers visited Hyundai Motor Group’s R&D center in Namyang, Gyeonggi Province. 

“A future mobility industry is the next focus of the country’s strategic business development for the future, after semiconductors and smartphones. I’m willing to go anywhere (to share ideas) if it’s about the future of science technology, regardless of the size of the company,” Ahn said. 

The Hyundai Motor Group chairman said he expects the future mobility business to be one of the main drivers of Korea’s future business and an important pillar for the next administration.

“The industry has entered a new realm of mobility business with integration of other industries such as semiconductor, AI, Big data and hydrogen fuel cell,” Chung said, adding that the automaker will work to cement the country’s lead position in the global market. 

Ahn and Chung toured around the automaker’s R&D center on an autonomous roboshuttle called Solati, which is equipped with Level 4 autonomous driving. Hyundai began test operating Solati last year in Sejong, and the majority of the test drives are currently conducted inside the carmaker’s R&D center.

Ahn was also escorted inside the building by Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot, which has been dispatched to workplaces around the world such as for nighttime patrol at automotive production plants and to firefighting scenes, according to the carmaker.

Most recently, Spot has been used to help monitor damage and erosions at the ancient ruins of Pompeii, Italy, as well as to detect potential thieves.
In June last year, Hyundai Motor acquired an 80 percent stake in the US Robotics company from Softbank Group in a $1.1 billion deal. 

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)