Toyota and Nissan also outpaced... Korea's autonomous driving startups at the forefront > News (주)오토노머스에이투지

Special Report by Choi Won-seok

Korea's self-driving Davids fighting US and Chinese goliaths

American giants such as Waymo (Google's autonomous driving subsidiary) and GM Cruise (GM's autonomous driving subsidiary) are not the only ones at the forefront of the autonomous driving race. Startups such as Zoox and Neuro in the US and Pony AI and Auto X in China are also on par with large IT and automobile companies. It started with a few researchers from universities and companies, but has grown to a size comparable to that of a large company within a few years of founding thanks to long-term investors who recognized the value of technology.

Although it falls short of the US and China, which are fully supported by the capital market, self-driving startups are rapidly increasing in Korea as well. The number of companies that are producing results with their own technology has increased to about 10 in a few years. Of course, the question can be raised as to whether a Korean start-up can beat the self-driving cars, as a few large companies will dominate the autonomous driving market just as some companies in the Android camps such as Apple and Google dominated the market when feature phones were turned into smartphones. However, domestic developers claim that "Korea has more room to compete with original technologies and services than before." Tesla and Google say that the era of fully autonomous driving is coming soon, but that no company on the planet has even come close to the 'goal' of fully autonomous driving that does not require human intervention. In addition, since each country has different traffic laws, signaling systems, and road environments, customized development is required. This means that startups have an advantage over large companies in responding to this.

On the morning of the 16th, I visited an autonomous driving startup 'Autonomous a2z' located in Pyeongchon, Gyeonggi-do. About 20 people were working on a computer screen in a space of about 70 pyeong (230 m²). A2G started the first paid autonomous driving service in Korea with Kakao Mobility in Sejong City from the end of last year. 

a2z was founded in 2018 with four autonomous driving personnel from Hyundai Motor Company. These were Hyundai Motor's 2016-2017 U.S. CES autonomous driving projects and 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic autonomous driving projects. Four people raised 30 million won in capital, started without taking a salary, and grew into a company of 50 employees within two years of founding.

In response to the question 'Can it survive in the gap between the U.S. and China's technological competition,' a2z CEO Han Ji-hyeong said, "The fact that Google and GM have not been able to mass-produce autonomous vehicles even with trillions of dollars is still a work in progress. “It means that there are many variables,” he said. Even if you are confident in your technology, it is important to survive right away if you do not have enough investment. a2z's strategy was to survive and grow the company without initial investment by winning government tasks and technical services based on its technological prowess. CEO Han said, "We made 200 million won in sales from the first year of business and 1 billion won in 2019. If we somehow survive and grow business opportunities, among domestic autonomous driving startups, companies with a trillion-dollar enterprise value like Coupang and the US and China cases will emerge. There is no law telling you not to come out."

Next, I rode a2z's self-driving car with a CEO. Genesis G80 was loaded with its own software and system, and it was very smooth for the vehicle to change lanes, stand, and turn after detecting traffic signals and street conditions on its own. There was only one case in which a person grabbed the steering wheel during a 20-minute drive. The car was being washed with the front protruding out of the road. The system paused for a moment to determine whether the car was being washed or stopped for a moment to merge.

In the afternoon of the same day, I visited 'Thor Drive' in Mullae-dong, Seoul. I felt like I was in an IT venture company in Silicon Valley. When I told CEO Kye Dong-kyung, "The atmosphere is very young," he laughed and said, "I was born in 1988 and am an elder in our company." Thor was founded in 2015 by six people from the autonomous driving team at Seoul National University, including CEO Gye. It has a development base in the United States, and in 2019, it surprised the industry by ranking 16th in the self-driving test distance ranking by company announced by the California authorities. It was the highest among Korean companies, and it outperformed Toyota and Nissan in the frequency of human driver intervention in unexpected situations, that is, the reliability and safety of autonomous driving. Last year, it won the autonomous driving business of Cincinnati Airport, Ohio, and has now moved its US development base to Ohio. CEO Kye said, "During university days, co-founders visited Stanford University to exchange research, and one of the people they met at that time founded Zoox.

While a2z and Thor deal with all three core autonomous driving areas of cognition, judgment and control, StradVision is a company specializing in deep learning-based computer image recognition technology. It is led by CEO Junhwan Kim, who graduated from Cornell University with a PhD in image processing. Pohang University graduates co-founded in 2014 and grew to a company with 140 employees. There are only 110 developers, and more than half of the total sales come from overseas. So far, it has signed a contract to supply its software to a cumulative total of 13 million vehicles worldwide. It has acquired 189 patents in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and is currently applying for 700 patents. It is a development partner of Nvidia of the United States.

There is also 'Control Worth', a control specialist that connects autonomous driving algorithms to actual vehicle movements. Founded in 2009, it is led by CEO Park Seung-beom, who was in charge of the autonomous driving team at Mando, a domestic auto parts conglomerate after Hyundai Motor Company. Recently, it received attention by demonstrating autonomous parking in collaboration with LG U+.

However, the representatives of the four companies were concerned that the difficulty of finding a job in the autonomous driving start-up industry would intensify due to salary increases in the game industry. Stride Vision CEO Kim said, "The future of autonomous driving is limitless, and more high-quality jobs will be created in the future."

Chinese companies moving forward, 3rd place in autonomous driving reliability with large-scale funds

As the competition for autonomous driving technology between the US and China is heating up, the growth of Chinese autonomous driving startups is scary.

According to the 'Test Distances for Autonomous Driving on Public Roads by Companies (2020)' announced by the state of California, the home of autonomous driving technology development, 'Pony AI', established by former developers of Chinese search company Baidu, is 362,900 km, in 2019. It was followed by third. AutoX, founded by Chinese researchers at MIT and Princeton University, also jumped from 8th to 6th last year. Both Pony AI and Auto X were established in 2016, and it is evaluated that their initial technology is similar to that of Korean startups. However, the big difference is that the Chinese side has grown its business with full support from its large enterprises and US and Chinese venture capitals from the beginning. Pony AI received $112 million from venture capitalists in the US and China in 2018, and AutoX's development power surged due to Alibaba's investment in 2019. 

The number of times that a watchman sitting in the driver's seat intervened to avoid accidents, etc., was the third lowest in Auto X, once every 32,777 km. It is difficult to make a simple comparison because each company has different driving conditions, but in general, it means that Auto X's autonomous driving reliability and safety is ranked 3rd among all companies tested in California. Pony AI was also ranked 4th in the industry at once every 17,281 km.

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