South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group and Dublin-headquartered auto technology firm Aptiv said on Monday they were creating a 50:50 autonomous driving joint venture valued at $4bn (about R59.5bn).
This marks the biggest bet by Hyundai, which is widely seen as a latecomer to the field of future mobility technology.
Hyundai companies Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors and Hyundai Mobis will collectively contribute $1.6bn in cash and $0.4bn in vehicle engineering services, R&D resources and access to intellectual property, the two partners said in a joint statement.
Aptiv will contribute its autonomous driving technology, intellectual property and approximately 700 employees focused on the development of scalable autonomous driving solutions.
The joint venture will begin testing fully driverless systems in 2020 and have a production-ready autonomous driving platform available for robotaxi providers, fleet operators and car makers in 2022.
Aptiv was formerly known as Delphi Automotive.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close early in the second quarter of 2020.
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 