Kakao Mobility Kicks Off Partnership with Autonomous Driving Startup

Kakao Mobility Accelerates Domestic Autonomous Driving Ecosystem Establishment… Leading Future Mobility by Partnering with Local Startups Kakao Mobility is partnering with local startups to secure domestic technological leadership and accelerate commercialization in the rapidly changing global autonomous driving market. This is interpreted as a strategic move to preemptively respond to the situation where overseas autonomous driving companies are accelerating commercialization and seeking to enter global markets, including Korea. As a first step, on the 18th, it signed a strategic business agreement with 'Autonomous A2Z', a leader in autonomous driving. This agreement includes diverse collaborations such as joint R&D linking Kakao Mobility's autonomous driving safety management system with Autonomous A2Z's autonomous vehicles, discovering business opportunities based on the priority introduction of domestic autonomous driving technology, and manufacturing and supplying autonomous vehicles. The two companies aim to launch services based on over 100 Autonomous A2Z autonomous vehicles by 2030 as a mid-to-long-term goal. They also plan to introduce 10 Level 4 autonomous vehicles named 'ROii', boasting over 90% localization, to governments, public institutions, and transportation operators by the end of next year. 'ROii' has been recognized for its technological prowess and stability, so much so that it has been selected as the official autonomous vehicle for the upcoming 2025 APEC Summit. The two companies have already accumulated successful collaboration experience in projects such as Seoul's "Early Morning Companion Autonomous Bus" and Daegu's demand-responsive "Dalgubeol Plus." This agreement with Autonomous A2Z is just the beginning. Kakao Mobility plans to continue partnering with other domestic autonomous driving companies this month to build a robust autonomous driving ecosystem. This is an expanded version of the 'KM Autonomous Driving Alliance' launched in 2021, which has already accumulated operational experience and shared technology through pilot projects with various startups such as 'SWM', 'ThorDrive', and 'Mars Auto', laying the groundwork for collaboration. As a platform operator, Kakao Mobility is not only strengthening its core control tower capabilities like dispatch and fleet management but also actively participating in advanced autonomous driving technology development, such as building HD map infrastructure. In particular, it collects large-scale data through its 3rd-generation autonomous vehicles equipped with its self-developed 'AV Kit', and contributes to the advancement of autonomous driving technology by freely opening this data as an AI training dataset for domestic startups, an achievement for which it received the Minister of Science and ICT Award. Ryu Geung-seon, CEO of Kakao Mobility, emphasized, "In a situation where overseas companies are accelerating commercialization and seeking to enter global markets, for domestic autonomous driving technology to gain competitiveness on the world stage, various entities such as vehicle manufacturers, developers, and platform companies must organically collaborate." He added, "A win-win approach for sustainable growth is paramount," expressing a strong commitment to the co-growth of the domestic autonomous driving industry.