All Hyundai Group vehicles, both EV and ICE, will be equipped with the internally developed Connected Car Operating System (ccOS), which will allow all Hyundai vehicles access to vehicle access to over-the-air upgrades, personalised services, and up to Level 3 autonomy using the eM platform. The eS platform will be developed as a skateboard underpinning purpose-built vehicles for B2B applications, such as delivery, logistics and even car-hailing services.
The group’s ccOS will be loaded onto the Nvidia Drive platform, designed for large-scale data processing needed by the lidar, cameras and radars for the Level 3 autonomy that will be deployed in future eM-based vehicles. The Global Software Centre will create software-defined mobility devices and solutions that extend beyond the vehicle, entering the larger mobility ecosystem. Hyundai’s Global Software Group is among the first legacy OEM software organisations to embrace and pursue this idea.
Tech firms targeting a slice of the mobility sector
Sony Honda Mobility is a joint venture with roots in both legacy OEM vehicle production, from Honda, and deep software development experience, from Sony. So it came as something of a surprise that in the press conference announcing the founding of Sony Honda Mobility, CEO Yasuhide Mizuno, the former automotive head at legacy automaker Honda, declared: “The mobility industry is reaching a time of transformation, with digital technology and software at the epicentre. Leading that transformation requires a completely different approach from the way that existing original equipment manufacturers do things.” Perhaps it should not have been such a surprise, after all.
The Sony Honda Mobility focus on software-driven development has its foundations in Honda’s establishment of a computer science research centre in Silicon Valley in 2000. Five years later, Honda’s research centre evolved to investing in start-ups that embraced open innovation in their software platforms. Meanwhile, Sony’s 2016 revival of Aibo, the robot dog, led the company to concentrate on EVs as a way to bring about company success with software-defined vehicles. With that mutual interest in software-defined vehicles, Sony Honda Mobility plans to build smart vehicles that rely on open innovation software development to supply users with digital products and services that complement their lives outside the car, while over-the-air updates enhance their experience inside the car.