

2020.01.08 Hyundai Motor Company
Hyundai Motor Company has unveiled its innovative vision for urban mobility at CES 2020, for vitalizing human-centered future cities. To envision this future, Hyundai Motor showcased three mobility solutions for the future - Urban Air Mobility (UAM), Purpose Built Vehicle (PBV), and Hub, a place for mobility transfer and community activities. Based on these mobility solutions, Hyundai aims to free future cities and people from constraints of time and space and allow them to create more value in their lives.
The company’s innovation plan ‘Strategy 2025’ to shift to its business structures is followed by this vision. It is based on two pillars ? ‘Smart Mobility Device’ and ‘Smart Mobility Service’. These two would lead to three key directions that the company has defined: enhancing profitability in internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, securing leadership in vehicle electrification, and laying the groundwork for a platform-based business.
Hyundai Motor has appointed Dr. Shin Jai-won as head of its newly established UAM Division back in September. Shin has served at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). His team will create a new form of mobility utilizing air space to drastically reduce transit time. "For our smart mobility solutions, we considered what truly matters in cities and people's lives. Hyundai Motors will revitalize cities by removing urban boundaries, giving people time to pursue their goals, and creating a diverse community," said Euisun Chung, Executive Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group.
A media video shows the future mobility lifestyle that Hyundai’s solutions will bring. For 4 minutes and 23 seconds, find out how the Hub works, central point connecting the UAM of the sky, and the PBV of the earth for new innovative communities in future cities.
The video begins by showing Laura, an urban planner, flying to San Francisco by UAM to attend City Mobility Conference in 2030. UAM enables runway-free urban air travel with Personal Air Vehicles capable of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL). UAM is considered a key future innovation business that can help overcome urban challenges like traffic congestion and transform the paradigm of mobility.
Laura texts William and Anderson, his colleagues. They take PBV, a new urban mobility solution that can accommodate a wide spectrum of future lifestyles with limitless personalization. William takes a nap on his way in PBV, and Anderson also calls PBV to get to the conference venue.
William and Anderson can use PBVs as their private lounge, or sometimes the means of public transportation. The PBV is highly customizable with complete disassembly of upper- and underbodies and adjustable size from 4 to 6 meters. Its interior can be personalized to individual needs by assembling modular parts, taking the PBV beyond transportation into the realm of living space. The fully-electric PBV is also an environmentally-friendly mobility solution. PBV can also navigate along the best routes and charge in-transit with the help of the charger PBVs. PBVs can travel autonomously in a platoon, which is expected to bring innovative changes to personal deliveries, as well as support the wider logistics industry within future cities.
The PBV is a new urban mobility solution that can accommodate a wide spectrum of future lifestyles with limitless personalization, which would make Hyundai's Style Set Free strategy a reality. Upon personalization, PBVs can function as a restaurant, coffee shop, and hotel, or even a clinic and pharmacy, in addition to being an urban shuttle. Hyundai's concept PBV will make our lives change drastically, and the Hub highlights this change.
The third mobility solution, Hub, is an innovative new community space that connects air-based UAM and ground-based PBV. The Hub has a Skyport for the PAV on the top and docking stations on the ground for the PBV to approach and depart from multiple directions, just like a space shuttle docking with a space station.
The place where Laura, William, and Anderson meet up and talk about Urban Mobility Conference 2030 is the Hub. It can be transformed into an infinite number of other spaces. The Hub manifests how PBVs can come together to form a new community of various categories for future city residents, including residential, entertainment, cultural, and medical.
For instance, the Hub can be turned into a cultural complex by bringing together PBVs functioning as concert halls, movie theaters, and museums. It can also be transformed into a medical complex by connecting medical service PBVs in the form of clinics, doctor’s offices and pharmacies. Hyundai plans to make smart mobility more accessible by placing Hubs throughout future cities and build a new mobility ecosystem around the network.
The company will overcome the mobility limitations of time and space and create new spaces where people can gather and interact to help build and vitalize human-centered future cities. The Hub concept of Hyundai Motors demonstrates how UAMs and PBVs can come together to form a new community for future city residents.
Hub and PBV: The Essence of the Future Mobility
2020.01.13 4min read