- Aptive and Hyundai recently announced a $4 billion autonomous driving joint venture. These are the details around the deal.
Aptiv and Hyundai Motor Group recently announced that they are forming an autonomous driving joint venture. This partnership combines one of the industry’s most innovative vehicle technology providers and one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers.
This joint venture will advance the design, development, and commercialization of SAE Level 4 and 5 autonomous technologies. And it will further the partners’ leadership position in the global autonomous driving ecosystem.
This joint venture is set to begin testing fully driverless systems in 2020 and have a production-ready autonomous driving platform available for robotaxi providers, fleet operators, and automotive manufacturers in 2022.
“This partnership further strengthens Aptiv’s industry-leading capabilities in the development of advanced driver assistance systems, vehicle connectivity solutions, and Smart Vehicle Architecture,” said Aptiv president and CEO Kevin Clark. “Hyundai Motor Group’s cutting-edge engineering and R&D capabilities make them our partner of choice to advance the development of a production-ready autonomous platform.”
Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv will each have a 50% ownership stake in this joint venture — which is valued at $4 billion. And as part of the partnership, Aptiv will contribute its autonomous driving technology, intellectual property, and approximately 700 employees focused on developing scalable autonomous driving solutions. And Hyundai Motor Group affiliates — including Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors, and Hyundai Mobis — will collectively contribute $1.6 billion in cash at closing and $0.4 billion in vehicle engineering services, R&D resources, and access to intellectual property.
“The new joint venture marks the start of a journey with Aptiv toward our common goal of commercializing autonomous driving,” added Euisun Chung, the Executive Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group. “The combined capabilities of Aptiv, a leading global technology company, and our Group, a global OEM, will create invaluable synergy to lead the autonomous driving landscape.”
This partnership is reinforcing the companies’ shared vision of making mobility more safe, green, connected, and accessible by advancing the development and commercialization of the highest-performing and safest autonomous vehicles.
And the new joint venture will be based out of Boston with technology centers across the U.S. and Asia and will be led by Aptiv Autonomous Mobility president Karl Iagnemma. Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv are each appointing an equal number of directors to govern the joint venture.
The joint venture’s operations in Korea will serve as a key technology center as well as a base for vehicle modification and as a testbed for autonomous driving mobility service platforms. And Hyundai Motor Group’s strong presence in the local automotive market and the country’s 5G infrastructure are anticipated to spur the partnership’s development efforts.
This deal is subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close early in the second quarter of 2020.
