Kia Motors showcases autonomous driving at CES

Kia Motors highlighted its autonomous driving technology at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at Las Vegas. Kia sees autonomous driving as beneficial for consumers by preventing accidents, reducing traffic, and reducing pollution. It will of course also free up time for motorists by allowing them to do tasks other than driving, while inside the car.

Kia demonstrated its autonomous Kia Soul EV at its California Proving Grounds facility. The Soul EV Autonomous Vehicle contained technology such as:

-Highway autonomous driving: allows the car to smartly drive on a highway. The car reads lane markings and can switch lanes to overtake over vehicles without driver input

-Urban autonomous driving: allows the car to go through a city setting, while watching out for obstacles such as pedestrians and other vehicles

-Automated parking: the car searches for its own parking space, and can be recalled from parking via smartphone or watch

-Preceding vehicle following: autonomous vehicle trails a vehicle while maintaining safe distance and calculating its own path

-Emergency stop system: can detect a driver who is incapacited (eg, fallen asleep), or distractred, and safely stop the car at the side of the road

Kia plans to have partially autonomous cars on the road by 2020, and launch fully autonomous vehicles by 2030. At CES, Kia launched its autonomus driving technology under the new sub-brand ‘Drive Wise.’

Kia will display a new human-machine interface system called “I-Cockpit.” The system allows the driver to use fingerprint and gesture recognition for vehicle security and operation.

Tae-Won Lim, Senior Vice President, Central Advanced Research and Engineering Institute of Hyundai Motor Group, commented, “Kia is undergoing a very promising and gradual process of introducing partially and fully autonomous technologies to its vehicles. Although the first marketable fully-autonomous car from Kia will not be available in the immediate future, the work our R&D teams are currently doing to develop our range of Drive Wise technologies is already improving on-road safety and driver assistance. The innovations presented at this year’s show demonstrate the future direction we are taking.”