Hyundai’s self-driving unit lacks head as rivals advance

Hyundai Motor Group has yet to appoint a new head for its advanced vehicle platform (AVP) division after a recent management reshuffle, leaving a key leadership role vacant as it faces challenges in autonomous driving.

The South Korean automaker completed its top-level reshuffle on December 18, 2025 but did not name a successor to Song Chang-hyun, who resigned on December 5, 2025 due to slow progress in self-driving technology.

Hyundai Motor Group has faced delays in self-driving strategy planning, while competitors like Tesla and Chinese EV makers continue to advance autonomous driving features.

The company highlighted the growing role of in-vehicle software, with two of four newly promoted presidents now focused on software-defined vehicles and manufacturing.

🔗 Source: The Korea Times

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Hyundai’s autonomous vehicle (AV) ambitions face reality check after $1.4B capital injection fails to accelerate deployment

Hyundai put $923 million into Motional, then paid $448 million to lift its stake to 66.8%, yet the robotaxi debut moved to 2026 and commercial rollouts are on hold 1 2 3.
The venture cut about 550 roles, or around 40% of staff, paused Las Vegas service, and began shutting its Venice, Los Angeles operations hub after more than 100,000 autonomous rides 3 4 5.
CEO Karl Iagnemma said “large-scale driverless deployment will not happen overnight” and will resume only “when unit economics become more favorable” 5. Hyundai has a $26 billion U.S. plan through 2028 with Boston Dynamics robotics and Motional AI work, while churn in the Advanced Vehicle Platform (AVP) group and the $289 million 42dot deal from 2022 not closing the gap push a safety-first path 6.

Autonomous vehicle (AV) talent market opens as Motional’s restructuring creates acqui-hire opportunities for AI infrastructure builders

Restructuring erased the high-performance computing team and shut the compute design group in Milpitas, California 3. Technical program managers fell from 44 to 19, creating a talent pool for acqui-hire (acquisitions primarily to secure talent) deals 3.
The 145 Pittsburgh staffers plus specialists from the remote vehicle assistance platform (software that lets human specialists support driverless cars from a control center) have hands-on work running safety systems across 100,000+ rides, useful for AI inference infrastructure (systems that run AI models in production to deliver results quickly) or edge platforms 3 5.
Hiring teams can target departures from the Venice hub in Los Angeles who supported Uber Eats pilots, a fit for robotics logistics plus last-mile delivery startups, while a 10-week severance window tightens timing and a shift to “core driverless technology development” may push remaining staff to seek stability 3.