Mobileye founder to meet Hyundai heir
Israeli technology company Mobileye co-founder and CEO Amnon Shashua will visit Korea today to meet Hyundai Motor Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun.
Sources said Monday that Shashua will visit Hyundai headquarters to meet Chung after he joins a media event in Seoul. But Hyundai officials refused to confirm this.
“We can’t comment about the meeting at this point. It will be a closed-door meeting if it takes place,” a Hyundai official said.
In May, Chung first visited Israel to discuss a partnership for developing a self-driving vehicle with his counterparts at the global No. 1 maker of advanced driver assistance systems modules. A Hyundai Motor research team has since discussed a possible technology partnership between the two companies.
“Chung’s visit to Mobileye is a sign of Hyundai Motor’s commitment to develop a self-driving vehicle in earnest,” Shashua recently said.
“We are in the process of developing a possible program to introduce a self-driving car with Hyundai Motor. Mobileye and Hyundai Motor are working together to establish a strategic partnership.”
Mobileye has supplied optical vision chips with motion detection algorithms to Hyundai Motor and its sister firm Kia Motors. It already has a strategic partnership with Hyundai Mobis.
Recognizing its excellence in self-driving car technologies, BMW announced in August last year that it would cooperate with Mobileye to develop high-performance autonomous vehicles by 2021. The Israeli outfit has also worked with Volkswagen and Nissan.
Intel spent 17 trillion won ($14.7 billion) to acquire Mobileye this year. Shashua became Intel’s vice president.
The partnership with Mobileye could, thus, develop into a partnership with Intel, observers said.
Mobileye also has alliances with global carmakers such as the FCA Group as well as auto part suppliers Delphi and Continental.
Shashua’s meeting with Chung is expected to outline whether Hyundai will join the alliance or seek a bilateral partnership with Mobileye as the latter did with Nissan and Volkswagen.