With the US and China rapidly advancing in autonomous vehicle (AV) technology and aggressively expanding their global footprint, South Korea's auto industry is feeling the pressure and urgently reassessing its competitive edge. For many here, the key battleground is no longer hardware or talent alone, but data sovereignty.
Hyundai Motor, South Korea's largest automaker, has announced plans to release its first production vehicle equipped with end-to-end (E2E) autonomous driving technology by 2027. The company also aims to launch a fully integrated software-defined vehicle (SDV), powered by artificial intelligence and cloud-based services, by 2028.
On June 22, Tesla officially launched its first robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, inviting select passengers to participate in trial rides, marking what CEO Elon Musk called the company's entry into the commercial era of fully autonomous driving. The announcement quickly drew global media attention and was widely interpreted as a direct challenge to Waymo, the long-time leader in the US robotaxi market.
As smart vehicles shift from mechanical machines to software-defined platforms, the global auto industry is confronting structural challenges that stretch far beyond hardware. At the Smart Automotive Forum held on May 16 in Taipei, TÜV Rheinland, a leading global provider of technical testing and certification, presented a comprehensive white paper titled Driving the Future: Key Trends in Intelligent Vehicle Development (transliteration), which outlines the regulatory, technical, and validation transformations ahead.
