It’s tough to say who is the favorite to win the driverless car race at this point, with so many players in the mix, but it is safe to say that Tesla Motors and Google have a significant advantage over the rest of the pack.
Now, there is yet another runner in the race, with South Korean car maker Kia announcing that it plans to launch an autonomous vehicle by 2030. To that end, Kia has created a new brand, which was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. The brand is called “Drive Wise”, and Kia says that it will focus on the development of advanced driver assistance systems, as the basis for an autonomous driving system.
Semi-Autonomous Vehicles by 2020
Kia says that the first phase of its self-driving car project is launching a semi-autonomous car by the end of the decade, equipped with various driver assistance systems, such as automated parking and highway autopilot.
“Kia is undergoing a very promising and gradual process of introducing partially and fully autonomous technologies to its vehicles. Although the first marketable fully-autonomous car from Kia will not be available in the immediate future, the work our R&D teams are currently doing to develop our range of DRIVE WISE technologies is already improving on-road safety and driver assistance. The innovations presented at this year’s show demonstrate the future direction we are taking,” said Tae-Won Lim, Senior Vice President, Central Advanced Research and Engineering Institute of Hyundai Motor Group.
Other autonomous driving technologies that Kia is working on include: Preceding Vehicle Following, Urban Autonomous Driving, Emergency Stop System, and Traffic Jam Assist.
A Lot of Catching Up to Do
Although it’s never too late to get on the driverless car bandwagon, Kia is lagging far behind Silicon Valley powerhouses Google and Tesla, as well as some established automakers like Mercedes-Benz, Ford and Audi.
The South Korean manufacturer will face a fierce competition in the future autonomous car market, with all of the above-mentioned companies having already conducted numerous tests of their self-driving car prototypes on public roads.
When Kia finally introduces its autonomous car, most of its competitors will probably have been present in the market for a few years. That means that Kia will have to work very hard to establish a meaningful presence and get a good market share, and catch up with the technology implemented by other companies.
Making Self-Driving Technology Available in Non-Luxury Cars
However, while Kia is by no means a pioneer in self-driving cars, there is one aspect to its Drive Wise project that is significant. It’s the fact that the South Korean automaker is one of the first non-luxury brands that has taken concrete and serious steps towards building a driverless vehicle, so it will play a huge role in making autonomous driving technology a staple in mainstream cars.
Kia recently started testing a Soul EV equipped with some of the advanced driver assistance systems mentioned above on Nevada’s public roads, as it plans to implement those systems in production models over the next couple of years.