Hyundai Motor’s Motional Lands at 5th Place in Self-Driving Competitiveness Rankings

In 2022, Hyundai Motor Company subsidiary Motional’s global self-driving competitiveness ranked 5th, up one notch from the previous year. At the top, there was a change in perception, such as the elimination of Argo AI, which went out of business with Nvidia of the United States, and Cruise of General Motors (GM) re-entering the leader group.

Intel’s Mobileye claimed first place among all 16 companies, followed by Google’s Waymo, China’s Baidu, and General Motors (GM)’s Cruise at second to fourth place, respectively, according to an autonomous driving technology competitiveness report announced on March 2 by Guidehouse Insights, a market research company. In last year’s survey, Nvidia came in second, but this year, it was eliminated from the leading group. Argo AI which received joint investment from Volkswagen and Ford went out of business and vanished from the rankings this year.

In the next group, the Competitor Group, Motional ranked 5th out of the total. Motional is a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Company and American self-driving company Aptiv. It climbed by one notch from 6th place in 2022. It was followed by US IT giant Nvidia, US startup Aurora, Chinese startup WeRide, Amazon’s Zoox, and US startup Gatik. Last year, Gatik was in the Challenger Group, but this time it rose to the competitor level. Russia’s Yandex and America’s Nuro disappeared from the rankings.

Established in 2020 with a 50 percent stake held by Hyundai Motor Company, Motional is expanding its self-driving robotaxi business in partnership with US car-sharing companies Uber and Lyft. It has set a goal to secure profits through the self-driving robotaxi business and produce meaningful results within three years. It plans to release a level 4 autonomous driving robotaxi at the end of the year.