Hyundai Motor Group has commenced the development of a robotaxi for Kia's first electrified purpose-built vehicle (PBV). This is a strategic move to supply Kia PBVs as customer-tailored robotaxis, following the Hyundai Ioniq 5.
The Advanced Vehicle Platform (AVP) Division of Hyundai Motor Group has entered into the development of the robotaxi devkit (PV5 Dev kit) for the PV5, which is the first PBV model from Kia Corp.
A devkit is an essential tool for implementing autonomous vehicles and is a dedicated kit equipped with a communication controller compatible with various communication methods. When autonomous driving software is added to the devkit, it becomes a robotaxi.
An insider familiar with the matter said, “Hyundai Motor Group is developing the PV5 robotaxi in response to requests from domestic and foreign customers who want to deploy robotaxis into various mobility services such as public transportation and logistics.”
Companies like Amazon and Walmart are seeking to deploy PBVs, which allow their interior spaces to be multi-purposely altered according to intent, into their logistics businesses.
Earlier, Park Min-woo, president of the Hyundai-Kia AVP Division who took office in February, established the AV Foundry Business Promotion Office. The strategy is to preempt domestic and foreign markets by supplying autonomous robotaxis utilizing various vehicles from Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia. The AV Foundry Business Promotion Office under the AVP Division supports the production of robotaxis optimized for customer requirements.
Previously, Hyundai supplied the Ioniq 5 robotaxi, which applies the Waymo autonomous driving software technology “Waymo Driver,” to Google LLC's subsidiary Waymo LLC.
Kia is also known to plan to accelerate its penetration into the global autonomous robotaxi market, including public transportation and logistics delivery, by utilizing the large PBV model PV7 in 2027, starting with the PV5.
The strategy of Hyundai and Kia is to meet customer requests by diversifying their robotaxi lineup.
While expanding the supply of robotaxis, Hyundai is simultaneously speeding up its own robotaxi development. Motional AD LLC, an autonomous driving subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group, developed the Ioniq 5 robotaxi in the United States to start driverless taxi services, and the AVP Division is accelerating the development of future vehicle technologies by internalizing artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
