Hyundai Motor reveals vision for hydrogen energy and software solutions beyond mobility at CES 2024.
09-01-2024 19:29 - EVENTS
Hyundai Motor Company today presented its vision for a hydrogen-powered, software-driven transformation beyond mobility applications at CES 2024. Under the theme ‘Ease every way,' the company held its Media Day at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas to highlight its future blueprint for a hydrogen energy ecosystem and a vision for software and artificial intelligence (AI). In line with Hyundai Motor's brand vision, ‘Progress for Humanity,' the ‘Ease every way' theme reflects the company's aim to create a comfortable and peaceful living environment by providing three core universal values of freedom, safety, and fairness for the global community. It goes beyond the mere physical utility value of technology and caters to the complex daily lives of people, providing freedom from various limitations, safety in communities from software security and reduced greenhouse gas emissions through hydrogen, and fair accessibility to clean energy and related services.
Hyundai Motor Group (the Group) has already announced a commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, substantiated by a clear RE100 roadmap to use 100 percent renewable energy in its overseas factories by 2045 and in every Group entity by 2050. Hydrogen energy will play a prominent role in achieving those objectives. For nearly half of the company's existence, Hyundai has been at the forefront of the hydrogen momentum, achieving many firsts, including the world's first mass-produced fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). It now has the world's highest market share in hydrogen-powered vehicle sales. Hydrogen plays a crucial role in Hyundai's sustainability roadmap as it is a clean energy source, with water being its only byproduct when used as fuel. It also enables the maximization of renewable energy utilization worldwide due to its advantages in storage and distribution. Hyundai sees hydrogen as the path to a sustainable future, as it is both clean and accessible.
Hyundai's hydrogen solutions go beyond passenger cars, trucks and buses to include trams, special equipment, vessels, power generators and advanced air mobility. The company is driving the energy transition as a major hydrogen off-taker. Hyundai isn't alone in its commitment to hydrogen energy. In June 2023, the U.S. published its National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap for accelerating the production, processing, delivery, storage and use of clean hydrogen. In December at COP28, the International Hydrogen Trade Forum and the Hydrogen Council launched a suite of flagship initiatives to accelerate the commercialization of hydrogen to transition away from fossil fuels. To further emphasize its commitment to hydrogen, Hyundai highlighted the expansion of HTWO from a fuel cell system brand into Hyundai Motor Group's hydrogen value chain business brand. HTWO now encompasses the Group's businesses and affiliates, enabling each stage of the entire clean hydrogen value chain, from production and storage to transportation and utilization. HTWO represents ‘Hydrogen' and ‘Humanity,' the two main pillars of Hyundai's fuel cell business.
Hyundai's hydrogen solutions go beyond passenger cars, trucks and buses to include trams, special equipment, vessels, power generators and advanced air mobility. The company is driving the energy transition as a major hydrogen off-taker. Hyundai isn't alone in its commitment to hydrogen energy. In June 2023, the U.S. published its National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap for accelerating the production, processing, delivery, storage and use of clean hydrogen. In December at COP28, the International Hydrogen Trade Forum and the Hydrogen Council launched a suite of flagship initiatives to accelerate the commercialization of hydrogen to transition away from fossil fuels. To further emphasize its commitment to hydrogen, Hyundai highlighted the expansion of HTWO from a fuel cell system brand into Hyundai Motor Group's hydrogen value chain business brand. HTWO now encompasses the Group's businesses and affiliates, enabling each stage of the entire clean hydrogen value chain, from production and storage to transportation and utilization. HTWO represents ‘Hydrogen' and ‘Humanity,' the two main pillars of Hyundai's fuel cell business.
Hyundai is undergoing a software-driven transformation led by the entire Group. As a provider of smart mobility solutions, Hyundai recognizes the importance of software and AI in creating a user-centric mobility ecosystem. At CES, the company announced its ‘Software-defined Everything' (SDx) strategy, which aims to transform all moving devices, fleets and ecosystems into valuable assets through advanced software and AI. Through its SDx strategy, the Group seeks to develop a mobility ecosystem that meets the needs of users anytime and anywhere. To achieve this, the Group is transitioning everything into a software-defined approach, from vehicle development to building the entire mobility ecosystem. It believes software and AI are enablers of achieving this vision through providing holistic user experience without limitations and is dedicated to delivering mobility services and solutions that prioritize convenience and safety. The Group's strategy begins with developing ‘software-defined vehicle' (SDV). This means to incorporate software development methods to automotive development which means to decouple hardware and software to enable independent updates and advancement of each. The network and controllers are designed within the SDV framework, enhancing development agility and efficiency. This increases the flexibility and scalability of the vehicle development system, enabling faster updates of user-centric features and continuous improvement of device. To enhance the user experience, the Group plans to develop a new infotainment system that supports a vehicle app market. They will also provide software development kits (SDKs) for developers to create killer apps. Additionally, the Group aims to integrate its own large language model (LLM) into their AI assistant and navigation system. This integration will enable more natural and convenient user interaction and experience with enhanced user safety.
As SDVs become more common and standardized, management of large-scale fleets will become easier and more efficient. Beyond individual vehicles, the Group is expanding its software solutions to include software-defined fleets for businesses. These solutions offer customized fleet management services, real-time data analytics and user-friendly administrative interfaces, allowing B2B customers to operate vehicles more efficiently and address real-time issues. The Group will offer vehicle data, advanced fleet management services, data analytics and valuable insights to B2B customers of different hardware and software requirements, all without the need for separate telematics devices. As vehicles, fleets and mobility in general gets defined and developed by software, they will then get AI-defined. The Group envisions vehicles evolving into ‘AI machines' that continuously learn to better serve customers and transforming vehicles into AI machines that continuously learn to better serve customers and deploy optimized machine learning operations (MLOps). Transforming vehicles into AI machines will enable the Group to automate maintaining and updates of vehicle, simplify or eliminate tedious tasks, provide transparent data, prevent and promptly address potential issues, personalize user experiences and accelerate the enhancement of services and solutions to deliver added value for users. This will contribute to stable and efficient operation of not only devices, but also mobility, logistics, and overall urban operating system.
The ultimate goal is to create a concept called ‘Cloud Transportation' where software, AI-defined devices and mobility come together to create a mobility ecosystem where transportation is easily accessible to everyone. This concept, referred to as ‘transportation-as-a-service,' allows users to freely access transportation and mobility services as needed. Everyone, along with devices and city infrastructure, will be interconnected within an ecosystem, enabling on-demand access to transportation and automatically increasing the intelligence of mobility solutions over time. The Group is currently operating various advanced mobility services, such as demand-responsive transport and self-driving taxis, and collecting data to further advance SDV technology, including autonomous driving, to establish a foundation for Cloud Transportation.
As SDVs become more common and standardized, management of large-scale fleets will become easier and more efficient. Beyond individual vehicles, the Group is expanding its software solutions to include software-defined fleets for businesses. These solutions offer customized fleet management services, real-time data analytics and user-friendly administrative interfaces, allowing B2B customers to operate vehicles more efficiently and address real-time issues. The Group will offer vehicle data, advanced fleet management services, data analytics and valuable insights to B2B customers of different hardware and software requirements, all without the need for separate telematics devices. As vehicles, fleets and mobility in general gets defined and developed by software, they will then get AI-defined. The Group envisions vehicles evolving into ‘AI machines' that continuously learn to better serve customers and transforming vehicles into AI machines that continuously learn to better serve customers and deploy optimized machine learning operations (MLOps). Transforming vehicles into AI machines will enable the Group to automate maintaining and updates of vehicle, simplify or eliminate tedious tasks, provide transparent data, prevent and promptly address potential issues, personalize user experiences and accelerate the enhancement of services and solutions to deliver added value for users. This will contribute to stable and efficient operation of not only devices, but also mobility, logistics, and overall urban operating system.
The ultimate goal is to create a concept called ‘Cloud Transportation' where software, AI-defined devices and mobility come together to create a mobility ecosystem where transportation is easily accessible to everyone. This concept, referred to as ‘transportation-as-a-service,' allows users to freely access transportation and mobility services as needed. Everyone, along with devices and city infrastructure, will be interconnected within an ecosystem, enabling on-demand access to transportation and automatically increasing the intelligence of mobility solutions over time. The Group is currently operating various advanced mobility services, such as demand-responsive transport and self-driving taxis, and collecting data to further advance SDV technology, including autonomous driving, to establish a foundation for Cloud Transportation.