Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, Hyundai – the name means “modernity” – is a vast and complex conglomerate. In addition to Hyundai and Kia vehicles sold through some 6,000 dealerships in 193 nations, Hyundai’s global reach includes heavy industry, finance and insurance, construction, engineering, steel, retail, aerospace and defense.
In the United States, Hyundai Motor America consists of more than 800 Hyundai dealerships. The nearly 800 Kia showrooms in the U.S. operate on a competitive marketing basis with the Hyundai nameplates.
More than half of Hyundai’s cars sold in the U.S. are made here, and the company plans to invest $1.3 billion to further improve its American production capabilities. A sophisticated manufacturing plant is located in Montgomery, Ala., and Hyundai-branded vehicles are also assembled at Kia’s factory in West Point, Ga. There are engineering facilities in Michigan, plus design, research and testing grounds in California. About 5,000 autoworker jobs are provided; there are 32,000 employees at Hyundai’s dealerships, and the company’s various vendors employ about 6,000 people.
Q: What are some of Hyundai’s connected car initiatives?
A: In the United States we have the Hyundai Blue Link System, so we’re extremely committed. We’ve changed the business model. All these features are free now (rather than being sold via subscriptions), and that’s just an example of how we’re going forward.
Now we can just concentrate on marketing the features versus having customers plunk down a credit card to try something.
Hyundai is going above and beyond the competition by making key Blue Link safety and security features like Automatic Collision Notification, SOS Emergency Assistance and Stolen Vehicle Recovery standard. These important features include immediate access to the Blue Link Emergency Response Center in the event of an accident, faster connection to emergency services and 24/7, 365 days/year access to emergency assistance via the dedicated SOS button.
Blue Link can also assist the police in locating and recovering an owner’s stolen car.
In addition to making the current features standard, Hyundai will tackle the inconvenience of outdated map software by offering free downloads to maintain up-to-date navigation programming on the system’s SD card via the MyHyundai website. The complimentary updates also will be available for three years as part of the Guidance Package.
Q: What are some of your newer connected car technologies already introduced to the marketplace?
A: We recently announced that we have an integration with Google Assistant and the Google Home device. Hyundai’s been first-to-market with these abilities to connect your home to your car. That’s just an example of the next landscape that Hyundai’s looking at. No one else is really exploring that right now.
The Blue Link Agent for the Google Assistant allows control of various functions of a Hyundai vehicle with simple voice commands. These commands can include “Ok Google, Tell Blue Link to start my Santa Fe and set the temperature to 82 degrees,” “Ok Google, Tell Blue Link to send the address of the Empire State Building to my Sonata,” and “Ok Google, ask Blue Link to unlock my car.”
To make these voice-activated features available to even more Hyundai owners, Blue Link Connected Care, Remote and Guidance packages are now free for three years on all 2018 Hyundai models and the 2017 IONIQ lineup.
Google Home is a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant that can provide real-time answers, activate streaming music services, smart home devices and now, cars.
Hyundai is the first mainstream automaker to connect cars with homes using Amazon Echo and its new Blue Link skill for Amazon Alexa. Hyundai owners have the convenience of locking, unlocking and remote starting their vehicles from the comfort of their couch, kitchen or bedroom using voice commands. The new Blue Link skill for Amazon Alexa is available across Alexa-enabled devices and Hyundai vehicles equipped with the second generation of Blue Link.
To send commands to Hyundai vehicles via Alexa, users must enable the Blue Link skill in their Alexa app available on iOS, Android and Fire tablets, and then link their existing Blue Link account within the Alexa app. Voice commands will only be sent to Hyundai vehicles after Alexa prompts owners for their Blue Link Personal Identification Number (PIN).
Q: Are there other technologies in the near-future pipeline that motorists can expect?
A: We have a partnership with Cisco Systems; we did some demonstrations at the (January) Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The whole goal is to make things more convenient for the driver, and it will be safer having cars talk to one another.
The joint program will create a platform optimized for connected cars, which will help enable two-way communication both internally between the car’s system and externally with road infrastructure, other vehicles, internet of Things (loT) devices, and the cloud.
Four key connected car scenarios will define the experience for customers:
- Fully Autonomous Driving – guarantees the highest levels of driving safety by monitoring traffic conditions, infrastructure information and data from other vehicles
- Smart Traffic – delivers convenience through optimized route guidance based on real-time traffic information, which can reduce congestion and minimize associated social costs that delays can bring
- Intelligent Remote Service – monitors the car’s condition to identify and resolve issues remotely
- ‘Mobility Hub’ – is the heart of the connected car, which provides assistance and infinite amounts of knowledge to connect customers with every aspect of their daily lives.
The connected car platform will evolve to link cars to everything, including homes, offices and even city infrastructure. Through its work with Cisco, Hyundai Motor will aim to have its connected car infrastructure adapt to new innovations in safety, comfort and convenience while encompassing advanced security technologies to aim to reduce hacking vehicle operating systems.
Q: Are your connected car technologies typically initially rolled out in Korea before being introduced into the U.S.?
A: Initially we launched Blue Link in the United States before it was rolled out in Korea. The base Blue Link technology was developed in the United States on its own.
Q: In Korea Hyundai is a huge conglomerate across many sectors; how does this vastness assist in furthering your vehicle engineering efforts?
A: The heart of Hyundai is its manufacturing. If you own your own steel company you can get the steel that you want. Hyundai absolutely likes to learn how to do things on our own. We form partnerships, but we have a foundation in the engineering behind it. We like to develop things in-house.
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