LG vs. Samsung

The Korea Times has an article disclosing that Hyundai is ditching Samsung to work with LG on new self-driving car initiatives.

This all sounds very “inside Korea” and I doubt I have the context to understand it, except that the participation of both LG and Samsung in the self-driving car world is interesting.

For a while now, traditional auto manufacturers have been wary of being subjected to a repeat of the mobile phone wars, with the OEMs (Toyota, GM, etc.) playing the part of Samsung, LG, and other handset manufacturers.

The issue is that car makers don’t want to be relegated to producing commodity hardware while Google captures all of the software value, a la Android.

The participation of LG and Samsung in the self-driving car world is a sign that maybe some variation of the mobile phone wars will replay itself, but with LG and Samsung maintaining their existing roles. Which, presumably, they are pretty good at by now.