Hyundai Motor Group has appointed one of the architects of Tesla’s Autopilot self-driving system to accelerate its driverless and software-defined vehicle capabilities.
Minwoo Park will head up the group’s Advanced Vehicle Platform Division and become CEO of 42dot, Hyundai’s global software center.
On his own website, Park states he graduated from Korea University and earned a doctoral degree from Pennsylvania State University before joining Tesla. There he became the first official computer vision engineer at the battery-electric vehicle maker.
Park led the first Tesla Vision release for Autopilot by pioneering the company’s transition to proprietary camera-based deep learning systems, Hyundai said in a Jan. 13 press release.
Autopilot’s Full Self Driving software has been dogged by claims of safety issues over the years, with settlements over fatal crashes blamed on the system and with California pausing Tesla sales pending investigations.
After joining Nvidia in 2017, Park rose to vice president within six years where he was credited with building the development framework for autonomous driving perception technology and led the production and commercialization of the company's self-driving software platform.
He also worked with global automakers to integrate projects into vehicles, leading perception, sensor fusion and deep learning teams to deliver autonomous solutions.
Hyundai expects Park’s appointment will accelerate development, business application and the speed of product development of its vehicle software technology across SDV and autonomous driving, it said in its release.
The automaker also said it will compete “more aggressively in the rapidly evolving automotive software landscape” while increasing competition with tech companies in autonomous cars and SDVs.
“Hyundai Motor Group possesses a uniquely strong foundation to rapidly realize world-class competitiveness in Physical AI across software-defined vehicles, autonomous driving and robotics,” Park said in a company statement. “I aim to make it a company where technology and people work together to lead the next generation of intelligent mobility, setting a new global benchmark for innovation,” he added.
