Hyundai Motor Group's Autonomous Driving JV Motional Appoints Robotics and AI Expert as CEO

Commercial Autonomous Driving Service to Launch Next Year
Fully Autonomous Driving Developed by CTO

Hyundai Motor Group announced on June 13 that it has appointed Laura Major, an expert in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) and the current Chief Technology Officer (CTO), as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of its U.S. autonomous driving joint venture, Motional.

Hyundai Motor Group announced on the 13th that it has appointed Laura Major, an expert in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), as the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of its U.S. autonomous driving joint venture, Motional. Hyundai Motor Group

Motional explained that, ahead of the launch of its commercial autonomous driving service next year, Laura Major was selected by the board as the right candidate for CEO, given her successful tenure as CTO.

Since Motional's establishment in 2020, she has served as CTO and, since September last year, has also taken on the role of interim CEO. She led the team that developed the IONIQ 5 robotaxi, one of the world’s first driverless autonomous vehicles certified under the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), and has built a machine learning-based autonomous driving software stack.

Before joining Motional, she worked at the U.S. nonprofit research and development organization Draper Laboratory and the drone specialist company Aerial Insight, where she developed autonomous driving and AI solutions for astronautics and national security applications. She is also the co-author of "What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots," a book about the future of human-robot coexistence.

President Major stated, "By collaborating with Hyundai Motor Group, I aim to introduce Embodied AI to transportation and bring significant benefits to society as a whole." She added, "Based on my deep expertise in building fully autonomous systems and my agility in rapidly implementing the latest AI technology innovations, I will work to make safe autonomous vehicles a practical part of everyday life."