Park Min-woo (photo), the new head (president) of Hyundai Motor Group's Advanced Vehicle Platform (AVP) and CEO of 42dot, who serves as the command center for Autonomous Driving at Hyundai Motor Group, said, "I want to make Hyundai Motor Group a company that leads next-generation intelligent mobility through a harmony of technology and people," adding, "I want us to set a new standard for global innovation so that Korea is recognized as an undisputed absolute powerhouse in this field."
In a first message sent to employees on the 21st, Park said this was "a vision I shared with the group leadership (executives) at the end of last year." Park was brought in on the 13th to succeed former AVP Deputy Minister Song Chang-hyun, who resigned at the end of last year. Park handled Autonomous Driving technology development at Tesla and Nvidia.
That day, Park emphasized, "2026 will be a very challenging year for us," and "the auto industry has now reached a decisive inflection point where L2++ Autonomous Driving is becoming commonplace." He added, "From now on, leadership will not be determined simply by 'who developed the technology first,' but by 'who has expanded to the market faster and more reliably with products that anyone can use with confidence.'" L2++ is a technology level in which a vehicle autonomously drives to its destination under driver supervision.
Park laid out a "two-track" strategy. First, he said, "We need to accelerate commercialization to deliver value that customers can feel immediately," and "we must set aside our pride in pursuit of that goal." At times, in-house modules may not be used, but he said they should not be discouraged and must move forward to achieve the best product.
He also said that, in the long term, it is necessary to internalize core technologies such as "physical AI (AI embedded in physical entities like automobiles)," which will become the foundation of all intelligent mobility at Hyundai Motor. He emphasized, "We must build a virtuous cycle in which internalized technologies support market execution, and data and feedback from the market, in turn, power further internalization," adding, "From entry-level to flagship, we will devote all our efforts to building mass-production software and a scalable validation system to secure L2++ and L3 capabilities that can compete head-on with Tesla."
To drive innovation, he also decided to boldly remove silos between departments. He aims to make the AVP headquarters within the group and 42dot, the affiliate dedicated to developing software-defined vehicles (SDV), a fully unified team. Citing past collaboration between Nvidia and Mercedes-Benz, Park said, "AVP and 42dot must work as an even stronger 'one team.' There will be no silos where AVP only executes and 42dot only internalizes."