Autonomous Vehicle, Weekly News #23 / 2026
※ This article summarizes interesting news related to autonomous driving mobility not only in Korea(mainly) but also in other countries…
Autonomous Vehicle, Weekly News #23 / 2026
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
※ This article summarizes interesting news related to autonomous driving mobility not only in Korea(mainly) but also in other countries every week. I put some my comments in italics, the news related to South Korea may contain links and documents in Korean.
<< South Korea >>
*The global autonomous driving industry is already transitioning from the technology development stage to the stage of validating commercial viability. Of course, this challenge is primarily led by U.S. and Chinese companies that have invested a significant amount of time in technology development.
South Korea is developing its own independent technologies through several startups that have steadily pursued tech development, backed by continuous government interest despite difficult financial challenges. Recently, preparations are underway for domestic services within South Korea to counter the entry of U.S. and Chinese enterprises into the autonomous driving service market. The South Korean government had already set a goal to commercialize Level 4 autonomous driving services by 2027, and it is now entering the final stages of achieving that goal. Currently, Gwangju is preparing an autonomous driving service across the entire large city with 200 autonomous vehicles. The service is highly likely to launch by the end of 2026.
As services are integrated into an industry that previously focused solely on autonomous driving tech development, collaborations with the existing taxi and rental car industries are also taking place. Recently, news surfaced indicating that the opinions of the rental car industry are not being considered in the decision-making process of the relevant advisory body. While this could just be a minor friction regarding leadership within the future mobility ecosystem, it could also represent the genuine anxieties felt by traditional industries following the emergence of AI.
Due to the strong opposition and powerful voice of the domestic taxi industry, South Korea previously blocked the introduction of ride-sharing services like Uber. Consequently, Uber operates strictly as a taxi service within South Korea. What remains clear, however, is that the emergence of autonomous driving services has already become an undeniable part of the global mobility industry’s flow.
Furthermore, TNC (Transportation Network Companies) like Uber, Lyft, and Grab — which could potentially suffer the heaviest blow — are actively responding to these changes. These TNCs have moved away from developing early-stage technology themselves; instead, they are working to integrate fully developed technologies into their own ecosystems. Currently, relevant South Korean companies are also quietly joining this fierce competition.*
[Company]
▶ SWM & MoveAWheeL: SWM and MoveAWheeL cooperate in autonomous driving to detect even Black Ice
SWM, in cooperation with MoveAWheeL, is launching a Proof of Concept (PoC) to collect and analyze road surface conditions in real-world driving environments.
The two companies plan to utilize mobile road surface detection sensors on autonomous vehicles to digitize real-time data on road surface conditions — such as black ice, icing, and wet roads — which are difficult to identify using cameras or LiDAR.
The objective is to enhance autonomous driving performance and safety by analyzing road surface conditions that are challenging to detect with conventional visual sensors.
SWM is an autonomous driving platform development company. MoveAWheeL is the developer of ‘EG-Way V’, a mobile road surface detection sensor. EG-Way is an acoustic wave-based sensor.
<< Other Countries >>
*Automotive automation technology can be broadly divided into Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, known as ADAS, and Autonomous Driving technology, known as AD. Many media outlets use these terms interchangeably without a clear distinction. However, in actual technological application, these two technologies employ completely different approaches. Of course, some argue that enchanced ADAS technology can eventually lead to the realization of full autonomous driving. Nevertheless, full autonomous driving goes beyond simply taking one’s hands off the steering wheel; it requires an entirely different approach to understanding the road. Consequently, automotive manufacturers have often implemented these two technologies by separating them. Naturally, regarding this approach as a massive duplicate investment, automakers are currently stepping back a bit from the development of full autonomous driving technology.
Instead, Transportation Network Companies (TNC) such as Uber, Lyft, and Grab have recently been expanding their collaboration with tech development firms, approaching it as a service rather than just technology. In particular, Uber is currently showing tremendous momentum in terms of speed and scale. Of course, not all the related news introduced recently may actually be realized. However, the point is that Uber has increasingly been forging partnerships with companies operating in the micro-segments of the industry. Up until 2025, Uber collaborated with leading full autonomous driving tech developers in the US and China, announcing partnerships and enhancing the maturity of full autonomous driving technology. As they enter 2026, rather than focusing on that upper tier, Uber is collaborating with companies based on ADAS technology, thereby preparing a natural link to automotive manufacturers. Simply put, it can be said that they expect to provide autonomous driving services by utilizing the technology of vehicles that select the tech of ADAS developers. It appears Uber is also contemplating the expansion ecosystem of ADAS technology that Mobileye has been pursuing since its early stages. In other words, for a company whose core business is services like Uber, the specific target of the service does not matter significantly. What matters is being included in the Uber ecosystem. And Uber can be said to be quietly laying the groundwork for such ecosystem expansion. Of course, for that ecosystem, they are securing compatibility based on NVIDIA’s computing system. At any rate, backed by massive financial power, Uber is now moving to construct the micro-structures of the autonomous driving ecosystem. While this approach may take time, one thing is certain: the possibility that the technologies of numerous automotive automation developers worldwide could be registered on Uber’s platform represents an enormous opportunity.*
[Company]
▶ Uber & Autobrains: Autobrains and Uber to Launch Agentic AI Robotaxi Program in Munich built on NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion
Uber, and Autobrains announced at GTC Taipei today a strategic collaboration to launch a robotaxi program in Munich, combining Uber’s ride-hailing platform, Autobrains’ agentic autonomous driving intelligence, and NVIDIA DRIVE robotaxi-ready level 4 Hyperion platform to support scalable autonomous mobility for commercial ride-hailing.
Pending regulatory approval, Munich will serve as the first deployment city for the robotaxi program, establishing an OEM-agnostic model to scale autonomous ride-hailing across vehicle platforms and urban markets. As one of Europe’s leading automotive hubs, with dense city streets, high-speed road networks, and a thoughtful German regulatory framework, Munich provides the right launch environment for commercially scalable autonomous mobility.
Autonomy has often depended on custom vehicles, heavy sensor stacks, and compute architectures that are much harder to commercialize at scale. Autobrains’ Agentic AI is designed to change that — enabling robust, real-time decision-making on standard automotive sensor configurations and efficient, accelerated compute, with the flexibility to deploy across OEM platforms.
The collaboration combines three essential layers for scalable robotaxi deployment: Autobrains’ Agentic AI autonomous driving technology, the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion platform, and Uber’s global mobility network and operational experience. Together, they establish an OEM-agnostic model to move autonomous ride-hailing from isolated deployments to repeatable, scalable fleet infrastructure.
▶ Uber & WeRide: WeRide, Uber and AVOMO Bring Robotaxis to Madrid
WeRide, a global leader in autonomous driving technology, and Uber Technologies, Inc. today announced plans to launch Spain’s first commercial Robotaxi pilot in the Region of Madrid, marking the companies’ first joint entry into the European market.
The service is expected to begin operations later this year, in collaboration with Madrid’s Regional Government (Comunidad de Madrid), with rides available via the Uber app. The parties expect the fleet to scale progressively and will initially include trained vehicle operators, with WeRide, AVOMO and Uber committed to adding hundreds of Robotaxis as key performance milestones are met, including the expansion of fully driverless commercial service across core urban areas.
The Region of Madrid represents one of Europe’s most attractive Robotaxi markets, supported by strong mobility demand, a large urban population, and favorable policies. Powered by the WeRide One universal technology platform and WeRide GENESIS general-purpose simulation platform, WeRide expects to efficiently replicate the operational success from its Middle East deployments, enabling a faster rollout of safe and reliable Robotaxi services in Madrid.
▶ Tesla: Tesla retroactively added ‘supervised’ to FSD contracts owners signed years ago
Tesla has retroactively modified “Full Self-Driving” purchase agreements to add “supervised” language that did not exist when owners originally bought the product. In some cases, the original documents have been made entirely inaccessible.
Electrek has confirmed the issue with multiple owners. The contracts in question were signed between 2016 and early 2024, when Tesla sold the package as “Full Self-Driving Capability” — with no mention of “supervised” and the implicit promise of unsupervised autonomy.
One owner, Oliver Abcarius, flagged the issue to Electrek.
Abcarius purchased FSD for his 2018 Model 3 on August 12, 2019. When he recently went to pull up his FSD purchase agreement on his Tesla account to build a refund case, he discovered that Tesla had retroactively updated the document. The original contract — which did not contain “supervised” language — now links to an invalid page.
▶ Uber: Uber to put 500 data-collection vehicles on the road this year
Uber revealed on Wednesday a prototype car that it plans to use to scoop up real-world driving data for its growing roster of autonomous vehicle partners, including Avride, Waymo, and WeRide.
This is the first vehicle Uber has assembled itself (with help from a partner) since the company sold its autonomous vehicle division to Aurora in 2020. It also represents progress on Uber’s new AV Labs division, which launched earlier this year to use sensor-equipped Uber cars to collect and then share data with its 30-and-counting autonomous vehicle technology partners.
Uber said Wednesday that it plans to roll out 500 of these kitted-out Hyundai EVs globally this year. That fleet will be able to collect “2 million miles per month of high-fidelity data” for robotaxis. Uber expects 50 of these vehicles to be on the road by the summer.
Uber’s AV Labs division is analyzing these two tranches of data and is preparing to collect even more with its modified Ioniq 5 vehicles, which will be used by its fleet partners.
▶ Avride: 60,000 Autonomous Rides on Uber with Avride
- 60,000+ Passenger Rides: Avride autonomous vehicles have now successfully completed over 60,000 trips for Uber riders in Dallas, marking a major milestone for our commercial robotaxi service.
- 2x Service Area in Dallas: We have already doubled our original service zone, with plans to further increase the area within the upcoming months.
- 1 Million+ Autonomous Miles: Our fleet of 200+ vehicles — including both research and development and consumer robotaxi rides — has driven more than 1.3 million autonomous miles overall, with 1 million miles covered in 2026 alone.
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