Hyundai Motor Group announced on the 13th that its U.S. autonomous driving joint venture, Motional, has appointed Laura Major as president and chief executive officer (CEO).
Laura Major is an expert in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) and has served as Motional's chief technology officer (CTO). Since the establishment of Motional in 2020, President Laura Major has been leading the company as interim CEO since September last year.
As CTO of Motional, Laura Major led the team that developed the Ioniq 5 robotaxi, one of the world's first unmanned autonomous vehicles to receive Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) certification. She has also taken the lead in building machine learning-based autonomous driving software stacks.
Before joining Motional, she worked on developing autonomous driving and AI solutions related to astronautics and national security at the American nonprofit research and development organization Draper and the drone specialist company Aria Insights.
Laura Major said, "I want to collaborate with Hyundai Motor Group to introduce 'Embodied AI' into transportation and contribute to society as a whole," adding, "I will realize a future where safe autonomous vehicles become a part of everyday life, based on our expertise in building fully autonomous driving systems and agility in rapidly implementing the latest AI technological innovations."