Korean electric car materials and components businesses are receiving much attention from foreign countries as an era of electric and autonomous cars is approaching.
The reason why they are getting so much attention is because they possess electric and autonomous cars’ hardware technologies such as cameras, printed circuit boards (PBC), and connectors. Because businesses that develop solution base products are also growing, it seems that the relationship between foreign autonomous businesses and domestic materials and components businesses are more on track.
During the first quarter of last year, Tesla sent tens of engineers to Korea for the purpose of discover domestic car electronic device business. In the past, Tesla usually used Japanese materials and components because they require reliability as they are related to drivers’ safety.
But as of recently, it changed its purchase policy for buying Japanese materials and components because the quality of Korean electronic device increased and supply and demand from Japanese supply chain management (SCM) became unstable. Having many Apple engineers change jobs to Tesla had an effect too because Apple obtains many materials and components such as semiconductors, displays, and camera modules from Korean companies.
Domestic electronic device companies are getting also sought from car electronic device companies such as Denso and BYD and not just from Google and Apple autonomous car companies. Domestic complete vehicle companies such as Hyundai and Kia are focusing on preventing domestic cooperative companies from breaking away to foreign countries.
In this era of electric and autonomous cars, one can choose Samsung Electronics, LG Innotech, Korea Electric Terminal, MCNEX, MDStech, Midongent, Thinkware, and Acetech as the domestic companies that receive most attention.
Samsung Electronics is looking into going into systematic semiconductor market by having system LSI as its basis. LGInnotech secures many car related solutions by supplying car motors and sensors, LED, and communication modules. MCNEX is 5th in worldwide and 1st in South Korea as an electronic car camera company and it is developing autonomous cars’ cameras and sensing solutions.
Korea Electric Terminal specializes in technologies for car connectors, and Acetech has car radar technologies that base on communication technology. MDStech has unrivaled technology in embedded solution for cars, and Midongent is focusing on improving its good’s portfolio based on black box technology.
“Percentage of electronic devices’ importance in cars takes up about 60~70%. If companies that are involved in IT materials and components want to get into electric and autonomous cars market, all they have to have is related technologies.” One of the Korean Security analyst said about current electric and autonomous market situation.
5 steps to developing autonomous cars by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)is as follows:
▲Level 0 No Automation Step where a driver self operates and drives
▲Level 1 Automation assisted Step where a driver receives some automated help from certain functions
▲Level 2 Monitored automation Step where driving is possible by using more than two automated functions
▲Level 3 Conditional automation Step where a driver cedes full control of all safety functions under traffic or certain situations
▲Level 4 Full automation Step where if a location is entered, an autonomous car drives from a starting point to destination on its own
Staff Reporter Lee, Hyungsoo | goldlion2@etnews.com