Hyundai Motor Group is not seeing significant results from its years of large-scale investments in its autonomous driving technology subsidiaries, Motional and Fortify Dot. Motional has virtually failed to commercialize its goal of unmanned autonomous taxi services, and internal criticisms have emerged concerning Fortify Dot's performance in developing autonomous driving software.
According to a Hyundai Motor Group official on the 11th, Motional suspended its pilot operation of unmanned autonomous taxis, known as 'robotaxis,' in the Las Vegas and Santa Monica areas last year. Initially, Motional planned to commercialize the robotaxis starting last year, but this has also been postponed to next year.
Motional was established in 2020 as a company founded by Hyundai Motor Group, which invested $2 billion (approximately 2.8 trillion won) each in the American autonomous driving startup Aptiv. Since then, Hyundai Motor Group has increased its equity stake to 85% through paid-in capital increases. The total funds invested by Hyundai Motor Group in Motional, including paid-in capital increases and additional investments, amount to approximately 4 trillion won.
Although five years have passed since its establishment, Motional is falling behind in the competition for autonomous driving technology. In the '2024 Autonomous Driving Leaderboard' survey released by the U.S. technology consulting firm Guidehouse in March, Motional scored 60.3 points and ranked 15th among 20 surveyed corporations. In the 2023 survey, Motional had ranked 5th, but its ranking has dropped 10 spots in just a year.
The companies currently leading in autonomous driving technology development are Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, and Baidu, a Chinese IT corporation. Waymo and Baidu secured 1st and 2nd place in the Guidehouse survey with scores of 86.5 and 82.3, respectively.
General Motors' (GM) robotaxi subsidiary, Cruise, ranked 10th. GM noted late last year that it would suspend investments in Cruise, expressing that it would be difficult to catch up with Waymo. Motional has received critical remarks for falling behind Cruise, which is practically in the process of withdrawing from the business.
Fortify Dot is also underperforming in its development capabilities. Founded in 2019 by CEO Song Chang-hyun, who previously served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Naver, the company was acquired by Hyundai Motor Group in 2022 for 420 billion won. Hyundai Motor Group decided to acquire Fortify Dot to facilitate the transition to software-defined vehicles.
Fortify Dot has been focusing on developing autonomous driving software and mobility platforms for comprehensive transportation services (Transportation as a Service·TaaS). It also operates Akit, a camera and radar-based autonomous driving solution, and Tap!, an autonomous transportation platform. However, both TaaS and Akit are still far from commercialization, and operations for Tap! have been halted since last year.
It has been reported that Hyundai Motor Group has invested over 1.4 trillion won in Fortify Dot, which continues to record losses every year. Last year, Fortify Dot's revenue fell from 40.7 billion won to 25 billion won, while operating losses surged from 91.5 billion won to 176.1 billion won.
Recently, there has been increasing scrutiny within Hyundai Motor Group regarding Fortify Dot. In the anonymous workplace community Blind, it has been pointed out that Fortify Dot operates with the personnel and technological support of Hyundai Motor and has been receiving additional funding from the group, necessitating noticeable achievements moving forward.
In conjunction, there are suggestions within the completed vehicle industry that for Motional and Fortify Dot to fulfill their roles properly, the group needs to clarify its direction and leadership related to R&D.
Hyundai Motor Group has seen a de facto disappearance of its R&D control tower since the departure of former CEO Kim Yong-hwa, who was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and resigned at the end of 2023. Instead, during last year's presidential appointment, the development of mass-produced vehicles has been divided under a 'two-top system', with Yang Hee-won, head of the R&D division (president), overseeing it, while Song Chang-hyun, CEO of Fortify Dot and head of AVP Division (president), focuses on operations at Fortify Dot and does not engage much with Motional.