Kia has postponed a plan to introduce its EV9 GT line of large electric sport utility vehicles (SUVs) including Level 3 autonomous driving technology later this year, according to sources in the automotive industry. Level 3 autonomous driving means that a driver does not need to hold the steering wheel when the car runs.
The autonomous driving technology that Kia wanted to use in the EV9 is called HDP-Highway Driving Pilot or HDP. It empowers a car to reach a speed of up to 80 kilometers per hour on the highway without involving its driver.
Hyundai Motor had also planned to apply EV9-level autonomous driving technology to the Genesis G90, but has postponed it indefinitely. “There are more variables in real-world driving situations than we originally anticipated,” said a Hyundai Motor representative. “We are looking for countermeasures and developing technology... We decided that we need more time to develop autonomous driving cars to meet market expectations.”
Full autonomous driving beyond Level 3 still has a long way to go. Technical barriers are still facing it. In particular, nighttime driving conditions, where there is less light than during the day, are worse to autonomous driving vehicles. In San Francisco, where the world’s first 24-hour driverless taxi cabs were introduced in August, nighttime accidents were common. In response, the California state government ordered a suspension of operations of autonomous driving taxi cabs late last month, saying it arrived at a conclusion that Cruise Robotaxis were unsafe to run on public roads.
General Motors (GM), which has invested in the Cruise Robotaxi, is slowing down its self-driving technology development. The company announced a budget cut on Nov. 29 (local time) along with layoffs of Cruise employees. As a result, GM has no choice but to change its long-term plan to develop future vehicles with self-driving technology, experts say.
Meanwhile, Tesla recently gave Version 12 of its autonomous driving software, Full Self Driving (FSD), to its employees for testing. This version of FSD is reportedly capable of Level 3 autonomous driving. When Tesla officially releases FSD, it could create another inflection point for autonomous driving technology.
Experts say there needs to be a social consensus on autonomous driving vehicles. “In the event of an accident with an autonomous vehicle, insurance and legal issues can be supplemented with the current system, but there is no social consensus on the level of manufacturer liability in the event of a fatal accident involving a car which runs on its own,” said a professor of automotive engineering.