Hyundai Motor Group, Aptiv to set up $4 billion self-driving JV

[September 23, 2019]  SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group and Dublin-headquartered auto technology firm Aptiv <APTV.N> said on Monday they are creating a 50:50 autonomous driving joint venture valued at $4 billion.

This marks the biggest bet made by Hyundai Motor Group, which is widely seen as a latecomer to the field of future mobility technology.

Hyundai Motor Group companies Hyundai Motor <005380.KS>, Kia Motors <000270.KS> and Hyundai Mobis <012330.KS> will collectively contribute $1.6 billion in cash and $0.4 billion in vehicle engineering services, R&D resources and access to intellectual property, the two partners said in a joint statement.

Aptiv will contribute its autonomous driving technology, intellectual property, and approximately 700 employees focused on the development of scalable autonomous driving solutions.

The joint venture will begin testing fully driverless systems in 2020 and have a production-ready autonomous driving platform available for robotaxi providers, fleet operators and automakers in 2022.

Aptiv was formerly known as Delphi Automotive.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close early in the second quarter of 2020.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Ju-min Park, Editing by Louise Heavens and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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