Hyundai autonomous fuel cell electrics do 190km trip

Five Hyundai next generation fuel cell electric cars have completed a self-driven 190km from Seoul to Pyeongchang.

It’s the first time in the world that level 4 autonomous driving has been achieved with fuel cell electric cars on such a long distance.

Three vehicles are based on Hyundai’s next-generation fuel cell electric SUV Nexo, due for release in Korea next month.

The other two were Genesis G80 autonomous vehicles.

All the vehicles had level 4 self-driving and 5G network technology.

The demonstration started in Seoul on February 2 with the ‘cruise’ and ‘set’ buttons pressed on the autonomous-driving steering wheel of each vehicle, the cars immediately switching to self-driving mode for the 190km trip.

They executed lane changes and overtaking manoeuvres, and navigated toll gates using Hi-pass, South-Korea’s wireless expressway payment system.

The cars had a number of advanced technologies enabling them to recognise surrounding vehicles more accurately and make better judgements at junctions and at branching roads, navigate through toll gates and pinpoint the vehicle’s position on a map by using external sensors for when the GPS signal was interrupted, such as long tunnels.

The Nexo fuel cell electric SUV can drive more than 600km on a single charge, which takes about five minutes.

Rear passengers can use Home Connect enabling the user to access and control IoT devices installed in their smart home.

Hyundai plans to phase in the home-to-car and car-to-home technology to its vehicles from the first half of 2018 and from 2019, respectively.

Assistant Chat allows users to ask questions to a chat bot with simple voice commands and receive answers in text or images.

Wellness Care can monitor health information of rear passengers, such as their stress level, heart rate, and mood state. They can also access therapeutic services.

Other technology provides for cabin noise reduction, rear door mood lighting, karaoke and real-time traffic information notifications in multiple languages.

Hyundai Motor Group aims to commercialise its Level 4 compliant autonomous-driving system in smart cities by 2021.

It also plans to commercialise the technology for fully autonomous driving by 2030.