South Korea Spends US $ 999 Million For Development Of Autonomous Drive Technology

JAKARTA - The South Korean government is increasingly serious in developing autonomous propulsion technology. This can be seen from the government's plan to disburse funds of 1.1 trillion won or around 999 million US dollars.

Apart from developing autonomous driving technology, the funds are also used to build related infrastructure support. A number of ministries and agencies are said to be jointly financing this project. The goal is to support the development of driverless cars.

Starting from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy; Ministry of Science and ICT; Ministry of Defense, Infrastructure and Transportation; to the Korean National Police Agency.

"South Korean car manufacturers and auto parts makers are also expected to participate in this project, to get financial support from the government," said the South Korean government.

The budget will be spent primarily on developing autonomous vehicle computing technologies and global autonomous driving standards, linking road traffic infrastructure with driverless cars.

The big target of this project is to be able to market autonomous cars with Level 4 technology by 2027. Level 4 is a level where vehicles can drive themselves in limited conditions, will not operate if all the necessary conditions are not met.

In South Korea, Hyundai Mobis Co., an auto parts affiliate of the Hyundai Motor Group, is taking the lead in developing autonomous driving technology.

The automaker plans to start applying Level 3 autonomous driving technology to its production models by 2022. In addition, Hyundai Mobis continues to work with global companies to develop Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous automation technologies.

Level 3 cars, if fully developed, will allow lane changes and other autonomous driving functions to work without driver intervention. In Level 5, the auto driving feature of the vehicle can drive in any condition.