Hyundai Motor hires Lee Jin-woo to lead self-driving car center

Hyundai Motor has hired a former General Motors researcher to manage its center to establish completely autonomous cars, joining with other automakers and Silicon Valley giants in speeding up efforts on the fast-growing technology.

Lee Jin-woo, 47, who has formerly led autonomous driving technology advancement at General Motors for over a decade, will head the newly developed Intelligent Safety Technology Center – a combined research body for Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors – from Monday.

“The new center will not only improve existing Advanced Drive Assistance System technologies however likewise carry out research into artificial intelligence related self-driving car technologies with the goal of commercializing those technologies,” Hyundai Motor stated.

Hyundai Motor and Kia, intends to develop extremely automated vehicles by 2020 and totally autonomous vehicles by 2030.

Although, specialists say Hyundai has to do more to catch up with competitors in the self-driving car race.

Recently, Ford Motor revealed plans to invest $1 billion over the next 5 years in self-driving automobile tech firm Argo AI.