“Data from 25,000 vehicles is a major asset Three-year golden window to catch up with Tesla and others”
On 14 April, Jang Hyuk, Head of the Socar Future Mobility TF, gives a presentation on the competitiveness of the autonomous driving data pipeline at the Future Mobility TF performance sharing session held at Socar’s Seoul office in Seongdong-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kim Jae-hyung, monami@donga.com
Socar has unveiled the achievements of its dedicated autonomous driving organization, the “Future Mobility TF,” and declared its entry into the autonomous driving market. The Future Mobility TF was newly established this January under the direct supervision of CEO Park Jae-uk.
According to Socar on the 14th, the company’s fleet of 25,000 connected cars nationwide collectively travels 1.1 million km per day, accumulating video and telematics (in-vehicle communication module) data in real time. The company asserted that, worldwide, only Tesla and Socar simultaneously operate a large-scale fleet via car sharing and a centralized data collection system.
Another background factor behind Socar’s decision to enter the market is the shift in autonomous driving technology from rule-based operation to an end-to-end (E2E) approach, in which a large-scale AI makes integrated judgments on driving situations, making data the key variable that determines the level of technological completeness.
Socar stated on the day that it has secured technology that can immediately convert the vast amount of accumulated driving data into training data through anonymization, time synchronization, and labeling based on a Vision Language Model (VLM). In particular, the 220,000 accumulated accident cases are regarded as a valuable asset for enhancing autonomous driving systems’ ability to respond to “edge cases” in unexpected situations. Jang Hyuk, Head of the Future Mobility TF, said, “Accident data capturing unexpected situations on real roads is a decisive resource that helps AI make flexible decisions in a human-like manner.”
With Tesla’s supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) service introduced in Korea in November last year and General Motors (GM)’s “Super Cruise” driving assistance system also slated for launch, Socar views the “golden time” to catch up with these players as the next three years and is accelerating its efforts. Jang, Head of the Future Mobility TF, expressed his ambition, saying, “We will grow into a vertically integrated autonomous driving operator, spanning everything from the ride-hailing platform to AI training data and vehicle operations.”
Kim Jae-hyung
AI-translated with ChatGPT. Provided as is; original Korean text prevails.
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