Hyundai Motor wary of self-driving cars after Uber accident

SEOUL (Reuters) – Hyundai Motor said on Tuesday it was cautious about developing autonomous vehicles due to safety concerns after a self-driving Uber car hit and killed a woman in the United States.

The US tech company’s car crash in Arizona was the first fatality linked to an autonomous vehicle and a potential blow to the technology expected to transform transportation.

Yoon Sung-hoon, director at Hyundai Motor, said safety concerns are an important factor in the development of autonomous cars, which is why the South Korean automaker is “cautious about mass producing self-driving cars.”

“When we evaluated other companies’ vehicles, they found that safety standards were more relaxed,” he told reporters, adding that Hyundai is taking more time than competitors to develop autonomous technology to ensure safety.

“Nobody knows under what circumstances accidents will occur.”

Hyundai, which has been slow to roll out self-driving cars, has said it plans to launch Level 4 autonomous vehicles by 2021, which can operate under certain conditions without human intervention or supervision.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)