[Press]Autonomous A2Z is Officially Listed in Global Ranking as a Nationally Representative Autonomous Driving Start-up

20 Mar 2023

SEOUL, KOREA, March 16, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Korea's NO.1 Autonomous Driving Start-up 'Autonomous A2Z', Ranks No.13 in the World in Autonomous Driving Technology. On March 1st, Guidehouse Insight, a global market investigating organization, announced the overall global ranking of autonomous driving technology. As American tech giants appeared on the list, namely, Intel Mobileye and Google Waymo taking 1st and 2nd places respectively, Autonomous A2Z took 13th place, being the only Korean company on the ranking. Autonomous A2Z is a Korean start-up founded in 2018 by four autonomous engineers from Hyundai Motors (CEO HAN, Ji-Hyeong, Directors OH, Yeong-Cheol, YOU, Byung-Yong, HEO, Myeong-Seon).



Guidehouse (formerly Navigant Research) is a large global consulting company owning the highest authority in the field. The company has been announcing the "Autonomous Drive Leaderboard" every 18~20 months since 2017 under the assessment of technical rankings of worldwide autonomous driving companies. The leaderboard uses 10 criteria for determining the ranking:


- Vision

- Market Entrance Strategy

- Partners

- Production Strategy

- Technology

- Sales/Marketing/Distribution

- Market Leading Capability

- R&D Process

- Product Portfolio

- Sustainability.


On the most recent ranking, Autonomous A2Z is the only Korean company listed. Since 2019 when Hyundai Motors was ranked 15th place, Korean companies were never listed on the ranking; only an American company Motional, a joint venture of Hyundai Motors and Aptiv, remains on the ranking.


In particular, the enterprise values of the companies on the list are all over 1 billion dollars, not to mention the accumulated investment being no less than hundreds of millions of dollars, as they are all either subsidiaries or partners of global enterprises such as Google, Intel, and General Motors. The industry finds the case of Autonomous A2Z taking 13th place is astonishing since the company owns an enterprise value of only slightly higher than 50 million dollars and approximately 16 million dollars of accumulated investment, which are all hundredths of other enterprises on the list.


An official of Guidehouse explained, "Autonomous A2Z received a high score on its establishment of self-survivability without the aid of enterprises or global partners, as the company focused on governmental R&D projects and implementation projects, and on its strategy of being aligned with the government policies", and added an opinion on the ranking that "the autonomous driving vehicles of Autonomous A2Z are capable of running as equally long distance, high speed, and difficult sections as Waymo and Cruise. The company is expected to grow significantly faster once global investments and partnerships are provided in the future."


On the background of Autonomous A2Z's entrance to the global ranking, its Maas (Mobility as a Service) is considered to be the key factor as it is assessed to be the closest to commercialization. As the autonomous driving distance of its competitors is only 3~5 km, which is limited to a certain area only and hence is closer to a demonstration, the autonomous driving vehicle of Autonomous A2Z can drive 30~50 km in actual public roads, which is equivalent to real public transportations. Its daily average autonomous driving distance is over 500 km, which basically connects Seoul and Busan using public roads.


Also, Autonomous A2Z is the first Korean company to receive VSSA certification from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and made various global achievements such as contracting Singapore's COSMO (Connected Smart Mobility) project, a national smart infrastructure project, which all received excellent scores.


Director OH, Yeong-Cheol, the Chief Technology Officer, said "Everyone in the autonomous driving industry recognizes the listing on the Guidehouse Global Autonomous Driving Technology rankings, so this is a significant event for the company, as the technology was globally recognized and assured the members that the vision and the technology R&D of the company are in the right direction. With appreciation to the provided ranking, being the only Korean company on the list, Autonomous A2Z will keep exerting effort in becoming the leading group of the global autonomous driving industry."


CEO HAN, Ji-Hyeong said "I am pleased to make a meaningful announcement on a meaningful day, and I would like to deliver my sincere appreciation to the government and the related agencies for providing support to Korean startups with various national support policies including Autonomous Driving Technology Development Innovation Project", and expressed anticipation in the future, "Autonomous A2Z will contribute in allowing more Korean companies to advance to the global autonomous driving industry under the One Team Korea, by serving as the autonomous driving section leader in Mobility Innovation Forum hosted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transportation, and by participating in autonomous driving international partnership projects and Korea-Israel Smart Mobility Delegation led by the Ministry of Industry.


Media contact


Brand: Autonomous A2Z


Contact: Minsang Yu


E-Mail: minsang@autoa2z.co.kr


Website: http://autoa2z.co.kr/


SOURCE: Autonomous A2Z


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