Samsung Self Driving Car Saga: Samsung Will Test Self-Driving Cars in South Korea
May 4th, 2017: A recent report from Korea Herald suggests that the Korean tech giant, Samsung could soon venture into the market of self-driving cars. Samsung has received approval to begin test runs of prototypes in South Korea.
Although Samsung may be mostly known for its mobile devices and other electronic equipment, the company has a sliver of history in the automotive industry as well. Though not much is known about Samsung's plans, one thing is for sure that this move comes soon after Apple, Uber, Alphabet and Waymmo started innovating in the field of self-driving cars.
Samsung has recently purchased the electronics manufacturer "Harman", which is famous for making in-car entertainment equipment. The Korean tech giant also plans on sourcing cars from Hyundai. Although not much is known about the move, Samsung is said to be testing the software aspect of self-driving cars.
According to another report, the Seoul-based Smartphone maker plans on investing in creating a software that uses deep machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to produce self-driving cars. The cars from Hyundai will be fitted with laser scanners and military grade radar equipment. Although it might seem so, Samsung has confirmed that the company does not plan on venturing into the production of actual vehicles but rather help provide the software for it.
This news comes soon after the Silicon Valley tech giant, Apple was granted permission to test self-driving cars in the state of California. Just like Samsung, even Apple is focusing on the software aspect of the program rather than the vehicle production aspect of it.
It is still not clear whether the Korean tech giant plans on testing in technology in other countries or not, but it is highly unlikely that Samsung will move away from Korea, as its headquarters are located in Seoul itself. Only future will tell, which of these two giants will prevail in the field of autonomous driving, Apple or Samsung.
