Cars and other types of futuristic vehicles made another big impression at CES this year, from Hyundai especially. The Korean motor giant has several enterprises making everything from personal and mass transportation to AI-driven, heavy construction machinery. On Sky News Weekend Edition with Jaynie Seal, I pulled together some of the mobility highlights from the show.
MOBION
The standout performer was MOBION, a sideways driving EV made possible by Hyundai Mobis. Using an e-Corner system, MOBION can move sideways, diagonally and perform pivot turns. Say goodbye to reverse parking forever!
The wheels are individually controlled by the e-Corner System which ‘translates’ the driver’s steering into turns that are impossible to make in a traditional car. Using ‘In-Wheel’ technology, Hyundai puts electric motors inside each wheel. This enables the crab-like steering but it also reduces straight line speed performance.
To make sure everyone knows what MOBION is doing, the car has exterior lighting and ‘ground projection’ to indicate the direction of travel.
Hyundai Mobis is a global automotive supplier so any customer could end up using this technology in future cars. The great thing is.. it works right now.
SUPERS-A2 AIR TAXI
This isn’t ready to go yet, but in a couple of years you could be taking a flight in Hyundai’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) S-A2, an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) prototype vehicle. It’s important to note that the S-A2 is not a drone, or autonomous aircraft. It requires a pilot to fly around its four passengers at 1500 feet.
S-A2 is a V-tail aircraft designed to cruise at 193 kph over distances of 40 to 64 kilometres in cities. It uses a distributed electric propulsion architecture and has eight all-tilting rotors. It’s designed to be quiet, the big difference to a helicopter performing the same performance. S-A2 is supposed to be as quiet as a dishwasher: 65 dB in vertical take-off and landing phases and 45 dB while cruising horizontally.
SMART CITIES
One of the key components to a successful smart city is transport. At CES 2024 we saw a number of people movers that are designed for quick up and drop off. These are autonomous vehicles that have a much better chance of getting a foothold in cities before private self-driving cars.
INDUSTRIAL
As I said in the video above, the AI excavator put on display by HD Hyundai looked more like something from Transformers. In a sign of things to come – very soon – there’s no cabin for a human operator.
It’s powered by electric drive and it’s designed to work in construction zones that may be too hazardous for people.
AND SO MUCH MORE
There was a lot more transport related technology at CES 2024. The event is so big, it takes weeks or months to tell the full story. So keep coming back to see what else happened in Las Vegas this year.