Hyundai News:Hyundai In Talks With Google About A Possible Partnership

[William Maley]

Collaborations between automakers and tech companies are becoming commonplace as self-driving vehicles and a sharing economy are starting to enter the limelight. Doing either one of these alone is difficult and it appears one automaker is realizing this.

 

Bloomberg reports that Hyundai is in talks with Google about a possible partnership. Hyundai Motor President Jeong Jin Haeng said in an interview the two companies share some "common areas that may require cooperation". One of those common areas is autonomous technologies. Both Hyundai and Kia are lagging far behind when it comes to this. It doesn't hurt that former Hyundai USA CEO, John Krafcik heads up Google's autonomous vehicle program.

 

“Hyundai is lagging behind the competition to develop autonomous vehicles. It’s not a choice but a critical prerequisite for Hyundai to cooperate with IT companies, such as Google, to survive in the near future,” said Ko Tae Bong, senior auto analyst at Hi Investment & Securities Co.

 

Source: Bloomberg

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[G. David Felt]

I saw this and then some other stories as it looks like every auto company is now trying to figure out how to have auto driving along with some sort of toe hold in a Lyft or Ubber like business. I see plenty of BMW auto's on the street of Seattle being their ride share program or what ever it is called but never actually see them being driven.