Yandex and Hyundai Mobis to Debut First Self-Driving Sonata
In March, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Hyundai Mobis to jointly develop Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous vehicles; this agreement envisioned our self-driving technologies with Hyundai Mobis’ automotive industry experience. The initial goal of this collaboration was to create an autonomous prototype based on a Hyundai or Kia model.
Today we are thrilled to announce our first prototype of a self-driving Hyundai Sonata 2020. The new Sonata is a good candidate for our self-driving system because its innovative platform allows for easy integration of our technology and hardware with minimal modifications.
Our team received the first Sonata at the end of May 2019 and started work on the prototype in collaboration with Hyundai Mobis engineers. This close collaboration with the Hyundai Mobis team allowed us to quickly and seamlessly adapt our self-driving system to the new vehicle.
We initially started testing the prototype on our closed testing grounds to ensure maximum safety and reliability. Our team has been operating the self-driving Sonata 24/7 in fully autonomous mode in this environment. We are testing the prototype against various weather and simulated traffic situations with other self-driving cars on the tracks. We plan to start operating the vehicle on the public streets of Moscow shortly.
The debut of the Sonata prototype is an important milestone in our collaboration with Hyundai Mobis. The self-driving Sonata will be part of our growing self-driving fleet, which is expected to reach 100 vehicles by the end of 2019. The partnership with Hyundai Mobis will allow us to introduce more self-driving prototypes based on other Hyundai and Kia models. Our collaboration with Hyundai Mobis is an important element of our expansion strategy, and the new Sonata is just the beginning.
Building self-driving car systems for multiple vehicles provides us with valuable experience for our long-term goals. Looking ahead, in collaboration with Hyundai Mobis and other automotive partners, we plan to build an out-of-the-box autonomous driving solution intended for a wide variety of automotive platforms.
