Hyundai Motor Company pushes ahead on autonomous driving: AVP Division, 42dot, and Motional join forces to accelerate development

[Las Vegas, United States – Reporter Kim Hak-jae]Hyundai Motor Group (HMG)’s autonomous driving joint venture Motional announced in Las Vegas that it plans to commercialize a driverless robotaxi service by the end of this year, while the group stated that it will accelerate autonomous driving technology development through technical collaboration among its Advanced Vehicle Platform AVP Division, 42dot, and Motional.
Although the position of head of the group’s AVP Division is still vacant, the group appears intent on dispelling concerns raised in some quarters about Hyundai Motor Company’s autonomous driving capabilities by leveraging synergies between Motional—which has accumulated driverless autonomous driving data in the notoriously challenging driving environment of Las Vegas—the AVP Division, and 42dot, the group’s software development affiliate.
In the short term, the group has adopted Nvidia Corporation’s autonomous driving artificial intelligence (AI) model “NVIDIA Alpamayo” to catch up in areas where its autonomous driving technology lags behind, while in the mid- to long-term it is expected to pursue a strategy of internalizing its own autonomous driving technology by fully utilizing the AVP Division, 42dot, and Motional.
Motional held a press conference on the 8th (local time) at the Motional Technical Center in Las Vegas, United States, to present the current status of its autonomous driving technology development and its future strategy.
HMG stated that it is reviewing ways to combine Motional’s Level 4 autonomous driving operational know-how and safety validation system, accumulated through the commercialization process of robotaxi services in Las Vegas, with the advancement roadmap for Software-Defined Vehicles (SDV) currently being pursued by 42dot, in a mutually complementary manner.
In particular, for the development of a machine-learning-based end-to-end (E2E) autonomous driving system presented as part of the mid- to long-term autonomous driving technology roadmap, the parties plan to collaborate by linking their efforts across all feasible development scopes while also enhancing the level of safety validation.
This E2E autonomous driving system does not follow the conventional approach of separating and connecting the functions of “perception → decision-making → control” into multiple modules; instead, it uses AI machine learning to integrally learn and output the entire decision-making process required for driving in a single, unified framework.
Such an E2E system, capable of integrated learning, enables training on massive volumes of driving data, allowing for immediate responses even in diverse and unpredictable road and traffic situations, thereby enabling more sophisticated improvements in autonomous driving performance.
To this end, Motional plans to train specialized models using data collected from various regions including Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Boston, Massachusetts, and then integrate them into a Large Driving Model (LDM).
Currently, the AVP Division and 42dot are focusing on development centered on Advanced Driver-Assistance System (ADAS), SDV, and vehicle architecture, while Motional is responsible for Level 4 and higher robotaxi technologies and related business operations.
Executive Vice President Kim Heung-soo, Head of Hyundai Motor Group Global Strategy Office, said, “The AVP Division, 42dot, and Motional plan to combine their respective areas so that, ultimately, we can enhance the product value and competitiveness of our vehicles,” adding, “While Motional builds technological and business competitiveness in the robotaxi field, at the group level it will also contribute to the development of SDV, ADAS, and autonomous driving technologies.”
At 42dot, development is underway on the autonomous driving technology “Atria AI,” and Chung Eui-sun, Executive Chair of Hyundai Motor Group, underscored his commitment to autonomous driving technology development by personally riding in an autonomous vehicle equipped with Atria AI late last year.
When Executive Chair Chung visited the opening of CES 2026 (Consumer Electronics Show 2026), the world’s largest consumer electronics and information technology (IT) exhibition, on the 6th and held a nearly 30-minute closed-door meeting with Jensen Huang, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nvidia Corporation, it is believed that they also discussed cooperation on autonomous driving.
However, within and outside the group, the prevailing view is that while cooperation on autonomous driving between Hyundai Motor Company and Nvidia Corporation will continue, accelerating the internalization of the group’s own autonomous driving technology is an unavoidable task, and thus related technology development is expected to gain further momentum.
The group expects that combining Motional’s E2E system with 42dot’s Atria AI will result in an autonomous driving technology that is more sophisticated and capable of responding to virtually any situation.
Yoo Ji-han, Head of the Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Corporation Autonomous Driving Development Center, said, “Although development is being carried out at both Motional and 42dot, we are looking at ways to leverage each side’s strengths, including data sharing and model integration,” adding, “Atria AI is currently being developed with a focus on ADAS applications for mass-production vehicles either this year or next year, and ultimately we have a roadmap to integrate it into Level 4 autonomous driving technology.”
Executive Vice President Kim Heung-soo said, “Beyond its planned application to ADAS, Atria AI is, in a broader sense, an essential element in the process of transitioning the entire vehicle electrical and electronic architecture to an SDV,” adding, “Based on this, we are developing in line with an autonomous driving strategy that combines the new architecture with Level 4 autonomous driving capabilities developed by Motional to handle special situations.”
hjkim01@fnnews.com Kim Hak-jae Reporter