Hyundai Motor Group has hired a former Nvidia vice president to lead its autonomous driving development, as the South Korean carmaker is putting all-out efforts into strengthening its capabilities in software-defined and autonomous vehicles.
Park Min-woo, who most recently served as a vice president of software for autonomous vehicles at Nvidia, will oversee software development across the group while serving as head of its Advanced Vehicle Platform division and as chief executive of the group’s software research unit, 42dot, according to Hyundai on Tuesday.
Park succeeds Song Chang Hyun, who abruptly resigned from the roles late last year amid growing concerns that Hyundai’s autonomous driving technologies had yet to produce tangible results as competition intensifies.
Park’s recruitment comes as Hyundai deepens cooperation with Nvidia on autonomous vehicles and physical AI.
With the appointment, Hyundai said it plans to speed up vehicle software development and commercialization across the entire software-defined vehicle, or SDV, and autonomous driving spectrum, while accelerating the integration of autonomous driving and mobility technologies.
Having worked for tech giants such as Tesla and Nvidia, Park brings extensive experience spanning the research, development, mass production, and commercialization of computer vision-based autonomous driving technologies.
At Nvidia, Park joined the autonomous driving perception team from its early stages and helped build the company’s overall development framework. He also led mass production and commercial deployment of its autonomous driving software.
Before his time at Nvidia, Park worked at Tesla, where he led the design and development of the company’s first “Tesla Vision” system, the carmaker’s camera-based system for Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. The shift moved Tesla away from reliance on external solutions and toward a camera-based deep learning approach.
Park holds a Ph.D. in computer engineering and a master's degree in electrical engineering from Pennsylvania State University, and a bachelor's degree from Korea University.
“Hyundai Motor Group is a company with the optimal foundation to rapidly realize physical AI competitiveness spanning SDVs, autonomous driving and robotics,” Park said in a statement. “I hope to contribute to Hyundai leading the next generation of intelligent mobility and setting a benchmark for innovation.”
The move follows Hyundai’s recent appointment of Manfred Harrer as head of the company’s R&D division, completing what the company described as a key leadership lineup for bolstering future mobility technologies.
sahn@heraldcorp.com
