Published : Aug. 11, 2016 - 15:53
Within eight years, Korea will have autonomous vehicles manufactured wholly by homegrown technology.
According to a 2.2 trillion won ($2 billion) blueprint rolled out by the Korean government Wednesday, the country will produce eight major components required for self-driving vehicles including visual sensors and radar by 2019. By 2021, carmakers will secure technology that enables a driverless vehicle to keep distance from cars ahead and change lanes without human input. And by 2024, automated cars from 100 percent Korean technology will hit the roads.
(123RF)
It seems obvious now that automated vehicles will be the new shiny thing worldwide. Korean carmakers and tech giants including Samsung have been jumping into autonomous car development.
But they have been rather taking a cautious step. Some say that there should be a social endorsement as to whether people feel OK with having cars navigated by computerized machines while human drivers take a backseat.
Technologically, Hyundai Motor said it is on par with Apple and Google regarding self-driving cars. But it has so far applied only basic self-driving elements -- such as a highway driving assistance system -- in its latest Genesis model, the EQ900.
“Technologically we are ready. But there should be enough discussion on why we need complete autonomous cars before making a final decision to mass produce such cars,” said a Hyundai Motor official. “We also have to see how regulations on self-driving cars will be legislated.”
The official was referring to the question of liability for accidents involving driverless cars. Such matters would affect carmakers’ direction in programming the vehicles on whether to prioritize the safety of passengers or pedestrians.
(123RF)
Drone market race Tech-obsessed South Korea is being left behind in the race for drone market growth due mainly to the lack of state support and infrastructure, industry watchers said.
The volume of Korea’s drone market is predicted to be around 27.8 billion won this year, much smaller than the 1 trillion won of Chinese drone-maker DJI’s annual sales and 8.4 trillion won global market volume, according to the government.
Although the government expects the market will grow to 100 billion won by 2019, it will not be easy without strong state support, analysts said.
“The domestic market is too small for local drone companies to grow, so they need to target the global market from the beginning,” Koh Young-hyuck, a director of the Korea Drone Industry Promotion Association, told The Korea Herald.
“However, the individual companies are still not competitive enough to compete with foreign companies in the global market without state support,” he said.
In Korea, there are only 20 drone-makers -- mostly small ones. For most of them, annual sales are less than 1 billion won, according to the Korea Drone Industry Promotion Association.
For the industry to grow, government support should be more strategic, said Park Suk-jong, chairman of the Korea Drone Industry Association.
“The industry will grow faster if government support focuses on software and information technologies -- which Korean companies are good at -- used for drones instead of hardware,“ Park said.
The government should also help flying drones become a popular leisure activity by creating more locations for them to do so or organizing races, said industry watchers.
“Drones are now perceived as adult toys because of their high price and the limited places to fly them,” said Park Jae-heung, a professor of Daekyeung University’s drone college.
“The central and regional government should make more efforts to hold relevant events or (create more) places so that (flying) drones can be perceived as a common sports activity by many people,” Park added.
By Cho Chung-un and Shin Ji-hye (christory@heraldcorp.com) (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)