Park Min-woo, who will take charge of Hyundai Motor Group's advanced vehicle platform division and autonomous driving unit 42dot from February, has laid out a commercialization-first strategy aimed squarely at challenging industry leader Tesla.
In a message shared Tuesday with employees of the division and 42dot, Park acknowledged uncertainty following the sudden departure of former 42dot CEO Song Chang-hyun in December, thanking staff for maintaining organizational stability during the transition.
A central focus of Park's remarks was direct competition with Tesla, which leads the autonomous driving market through its Full Self-Driving system. Park said Hyundai Motor will prioritize securing mass-producible Level 2++ and Level 3 autonomous driving functions — systems capable of handling most driving tasks, with Level 3 enabling hands-off driving under limited conditions.
"With production-ready software and a scalable validation framework, we aim to compete head-on with Tesla — from entry-level models to flagship vehicles," Park said.
To that end, he outlined a dual-track strategy: accelerating near-term commercialization while steadily internalizing core technologies over the longer term. These include a physical artificial intelligence framework and a data flywheel — a self-reinforcing loop in which real-world driving data continuously improves AI performance — to support future intelligent mobility systems.
Park described 2026 as a pivotal year for the autonomous driving sector, noting that Level 2++ systems are rapidly becoming mainstream. "Future leadership will not be determined by who develops technology first," he said, "but by who can scale it into reliable, safe products that customers trust."
He also emphasized that the advanced vehicle platform division and 42dot will operate fully integrated as "one team," rejecting rigid distinctions between the division's execution role and 42dot's technology development mandate. As an example, Park pointed to close collaboration between Nvidia and Mercedes-Benz, arguing that deeply integrated teams are better positioned to generate meaningful synergy in autonomous driving.
hyejin2@heraldcorp.com
