Automotive Convergence
Companies in the automobile, information technology (IT), software (SW), communications and materials industries, such as Hyundai Motor, LG Electronics, Naver, KT, Hanwha Advanced Materials and Obigo, have set up an automotive alliance in order to promote the automotive convergence industry.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) said on Dec. 8 that it hosted the Future Vehicle Convergence Symposium at The-K Hotel in Seoul, launching the automotive convergence alliance.
The alliance, which is consisted of many companies that can actually carry out automotive convergence research and development (R&D) including fully assembled car and parts producers and other industries, will conduct convergence and collaborative R&D tasks, in cooperation with the MOTIE’s R&D. Also, it will seek and develop cooperation projects between automakers and other industries.
Started with six companies, the automotive convergence alliance will expand partner companies and make attempts to converge various sectors.
At the symposium, Hyundai Motor introduced the current status of autonomous driving technologies and plans to turn to intelligent technologies and develop new convergence services, while LG Electronics announced the recent achievement to supply 11 parts in the electric vehicle sector to GM.
Naver unveiled “Project Blue” to invest 100 billion won (US$84.93 million) to develop smart cars in the next five years, and KT proposed the plan to develop autonomous driving technologies by converging the strengths of mobile carriers, such as 5G communications, cloud and Big Data.
Hanwha Advanced Materials and Obigo also shared their visions in automotive lightweight materials and parts industry and examples how other industries can overcome difficulties to enter the auto industry.