President Chang-Hyeon Track, head of the brand new Transportation-as-a-Service Division at Hyundai Motor Group, discusses the significance of software program outlined mobility in shaping a future past autos.
It is rather straightforward to get swept up within the unashamed future-gazing that goes on on the Client Electronics Present in Las Vegas. The tech and software program symposium that takes place yearly underneath the shimmering lights of Sin Metropolis is an excuse for manufacturers to showcase a imaginative and prescient of what lies forward when the whole lot from AI to robotics, software program to {hardware} turn into ever-more entwined in our each day lives.
OEMs have historically used the occasion as a stage to showcase future infotainment techniques, breakthroughs in autonomous driving know-how and early appears to be like at various powertrains, and far of it has been as pie-in-the-sky because the wearable oven that drew crowds this 12 months (see present report on web page XX).
However for Chang-Hyeon Track, a lately appointed President and Head of Hyundai Motor Group’s new Transportation-as-a-Service (TaaS) Division, CES appears like residence. A former worker of Apple and Microsoft, he’s additionally the founding father of Naver Labs, an organization Track himself refers to as ‘the Google of Korea’. Software program is his language, and his focus is to grasp Hyundai’s Software program-defined The whole lot (SDx) technique that can remodel the enterprise from a maker of vehicles and business autos into a sensible mobility options supplier.
“Our imaginative and prescient goes past autos,” Track explains. “It’s about empowering a mobility ecosystem. We see motion as a brand new supply of data and innovation. And our options and units make that information universally helpful.”
Previous to taking his position on the Hyundai Motor Group, Track additionally based autonomous transportation-as-a-service start-up 42dot again in 2019, an organization that Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) acquired three years later for 427.6 billion received (round £255 million or $330 million).
His work at 42dot, in addition to his expertise at tech giants like Apple and Microsoft, guarantee Track is completely positioned to spearhead a venture that can in the end lead to the whole mobility ecosystem that Hyundai Motor Group envisions. This might embrace autonomous electrical vehicles, ride-hailing companies and electrified business autos, harnessing the facility of software program and AI to make it protected and handy for the top consumer to seamlessly transfer across the city setting.
Small steps
Though the overarching image will in the future be a seamless interconnected net of Hyundai-branded mobility options, Track admits that there’s a lengthy option to go earlier than it turns into a actuality.
“The corporate is transferring in direction of a software-defined automobile future, to allow quicker updates and steady enchancment to our merchandise,” he says. “So, the main focus for me over the subsequent two years is to introduce a brand new infotainment platform, which we’re calling SDV OS, which is able to embrace an built-in AI assistant and supply an app market to clients.
“I’m a giant Apple fan and have at all times beloved CarPlay. I’m additionally a giant believer {that a} good infotainment system and in-car consumer expertise needs to be as straightforward as utilizing and updating your smartphone. That’s what we must always try for.”
This technique will present itself in an overhaul of Hyundai and Kia infotainment techniques over the approaching years, providing clients the flexibility to obtain apps and buy companies from a web based market, similar to Person Based mostly Insurance coverage, which harnesses information from the automobile to ship a extra bespoke – and doubtlessly cheaper – insurance coverage product to the top consumer.
“To do that, we’re presently opening our API to 3rd get together builders and saying, ‘Right here is our information, try to enhance on what now we have and benefit from what now we have constructed’ so we are able to develop a killer app that makes use of the automobile information to supply extra to the consumer,” he says. “I believe that’s what distinguishes us from many different OEMs, the actual fact we’re being open.”
Though not fully distinctive – President Track is fast to say Mercedes-Benz and the work the German automotive large is endeavor by itself MB.OS platform – HMG’s upcoming working system will present the basics for the always linked, simply up to date subsequent technology of SDV.
Studying the language
Though Synthetic Intelligence will play a a lot better position in Hyundai Motor Group’s good mobility masterplan, the primary forays into the tech have already been made, as Chang-Hyeon Track brings his learnings from Naver Labs to the automotive world.
“The problem with present Massive Studying Fashions (LLM) is that they don’t have entry to automobile information,” Track stated after revealing that his workforce have been already in superior phases of making its personal Synthetic Intelligence-based LLM to be used in upcoming Hyundai Motor Group autos. “These fashions don’t have entry to cellphone contacts, they don’t have entry to automobile settings and driver information, that means present fashions can’t give customers all the solutions.”
Naver Labs already has its personal LLM and contemplating it acts as a search engine, mapping and productiveness options supplier in South Korea, it already has deep expertise in harnessing AI to make issues simpler for the top consumer.
Track stated he wished to create a ‘hybrid’ voice assistant system that might ship generic questions out to issues like ChatGPT, Naver and different such digital companies for solutions, however would additionally use the likes of Mapbox’s MapGPT’s location-intelligent AI voice assistant with regards to conversational navigational requests and its personal voice assistant for automobile performance.
Once more, referring to his admiration for CarPlay, Track needs this LLM to work seamlessly throughout all techniques, enabling drivers to make use of voice instructions to regulate in-vehicle performance, together with local weather management, home windows and music, in addition to combine common exterior apps, similar to OpenTable and TripAdvisor into its upcoming navigation system – all of which will be interacted with utilizing conversational, pure language.
This sentiment was beforehand echoed by Charles Ryu, Senior Vice President and Head of the International Model & CX Division at sister firm Kia, who revealed throughout its inaugural EV Day final 12 months that upcoming Kia EV fashions would function a sophisticated AI chatbot that might enable clients to do the whole lot from ebook in scheduled servicing and upkeep, to securing tables at eating places.
Track understands that AI is sizzling property proper now, referring to the actual fact Volkswagen selected CES to announce its partnership with ChatGPT, introducing it to autos later this 12 months, whereas Mercedes-Benz additionally revealed particulars of its personal AI-powered voice assistant.
However greater than only a gimmick that permits clients to ‘speak’ to their vehicles, Track feels that growing an in-house LLM will likely be an vital basis for future types of superior mobility, whether or not that’s reserving a driverless robo-taxi or adjusting the atmosphere inside your DICE (Digital Curated Expertise) autonomous mobility pod (see Rolling the DICE).
The whole lot is linked
Though a brand new infotainment system and an AI-infused voice assistant may sound like easy first steps, the Hyundai Motor Group feels that it’s the foundation from which to launch its software-defined future.
The automaker feels that as SDVs turn into extra commonplace and standardised, it should make administration of large-scale fleets a lot simpler and extra environment friendly. Pondering past the non-public proprietor, HMG needs to provide B2B clients entry to real-time information analytics and user-friendly administrative interfaces, permitting them to function autos extra effectively and handle real-time points, with out the necessity for separate telematics units.
At this 12 months’s CES, Hyundai Motor Group laid out its imaginative and prescient of the long run the place autos, fleets and mobility basically ultimately turn into managed and outlined by Synthetic Intelligence. Outlined as ‘transportation-as-a-service,’ Hyundai believes it should enable customers to freely entry transportation and mobility companies when required.
The whole lot from units to metropolis infrastructure will likely be interconnected inside an ecosystem, enabling on-demand entry to transportation, whereas using AI will improve the intelligence of the service over time. Hyundai says there will likely be a time when it is going to be in a position to predict when a buyer requires a trip from one facet of the town to a different, negating the necessity for third get together apps.
Track believes his expertise with growing autonomous autos by his firm 42dot has primed him for this daring new imaginative and prescient, whereas a partnership with Samsung, which is able to present its newest premium automotive processor, dubbed Exynos Auto, will ship the {hardware} to grasp this new software-driven method.
Though it’s straightforward to really feel that autonomous passenger pods and Hyundai’s perception that out of date ‘mobility modules’ may turn into an workplace area or perhaps a pop–up store are fanciful sci-fi daydreams, it’s clear The Group has a street map that stretches far past the passenger automotive and mobility options we all know and recognise right this moment.
Additional proof of this might be discovered within the parking zone of the Las Vegas Conference Heart, the place Hyundai’s electrical vertical take-off and touchdown (eVTOL) sub-brand, Supernal, showcased its S-A2 – an electrified, eight-rotor flying craft that can go into its testing section subsequent 12 months. We may quickly discover that Supernal turns into the ‘Uber of the skies’, with software program, AI and the whole lot that Track has talked about to date enjoying an vital position in its seamless operation.
The expertise to make it work
“I spend a minimum of a 3rd of my time making an attempt to rent the fitting folks,” Track explains when quizzed in regards to the greatest points dealing with Hyundai Motor Group’s push in direction of a software-defined future. “There’s a lot competitors on the market for proficient folks in tech, and that’s the form of individual I wish to entice. We nonetheless rent lots of people from the automotive business, however their mindset usually isn’t proper for what we try to realize. However then if I rent from tech firms, these folks don’t actually perceive automotive. So, I’ve to provide them lots of path.”
Though the previous adage of ‘transfer quick and break issues’ doesn’t fairly apply to the method Track is taking throughout the Hyundai Motor Group, he admits that there must be a giant shift in the best way the corporate has to assume and act whether it is to maintain up with the tempo of change.
“We method issues with a tech mindset and Hyundai could be very conventional, so the corporate has very totally different processes,” he says. “I’ve to be conscious of this, as a result of as soon as 42dot grew to become a part of The Group, any errors we made additionally grew to become the errors of The Group. It has made us turn into safer; it has actually helped us.”
Though Track says altering the best way Hyundai Motor Group approaches software program was gradual at first, he says issues are actually altering “very quick”, with the enterprise basically accepting that it has to assume like a tech firm if it needs to efficiently transfer into this area.
“That’s a part of the explanation I got here to CES0,” he concludes, “As a result of I wished to put out the challenges we face and the issues we have to resolve and ship a message for the fitting folks to hitch us.”
Rolling the DICE
Hyundai’s Digital Curated Expertise, which was on show on its substantial stand at this 12 months’s CES, offers an perception into what we may count on from Group’s future mobility options.
Dubbed a ‘private mobility platform’, the extremely autonomous pod is extra like a small lounge on wheels than it’s a automotive or EV that we’d count on to be donning a Hyundai badge. It supplies “curated companies by software program know-how”, in response to Hyundai, whereas shows on all partitions supply an immersive consumer expertise when travelling.
The consumer interacts with a ‘kinetic interface’, which is akin to an AI-powered digital face that communicates with the consumer by way of pure language, whereas a bio-sensing digital camera can pick-up on how the passenger is feeling and alter the setting accordingly.
Bigger variations of DICE, dubbed SPACE (Spatial Curated Expertise), will be tailor-made much more to the consumer’s tastes and necessities, whereas out of date mobility modules can then be remodeled into moveable items of structure, be it workplace area or pop-up retailers.
