Hyundai Motor to Acquire a Majority Stake in Robotic Firm Boston Dynamics

December 11, 2020 09:57 PM AEDT | By Hina Chowdhary

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Hyundai Motor to Acquire a Majority Stake in Robotic Firm Boston Dynamics

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Summary

Hyundai Motor Group along with its chairman will acquire an 80 per cent stake in the US-based robotic design firm Boston Dynamics

The deal will help Hyundai to boost automation at its unionised car industrial units with the help of Boston Dynamics’s technology

Chairman Euisun Chung stated that the company will see 20 per cent of its business coming from robotics by 2030

South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor Group and its chairman Euisun Chung are set to acquire an 80 per cent stake in US-based robotic design manufacturer Boston Dynamics, owned by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, for about $736-$828 million.

The deal will help the Korean car manufacturer to boost automation at its unionised car industrial units with the help of Boston Dynamics’s robot technology. It will also aid in designing autonomous vehicles such as self-driving cars, delivery robots, mobility services.

The acquisition has come at a time when the newly promoted chairman Euisun Chung has vowed to reduce the dependency on traditional car manufacturing. Chung said by 2030, the company will see 20 per cent of its business coming from robotics, 50 per cent from car manufacturing and the rest from urban air mobility.

It is being reported that as part of the deal, Chung may hold 20 per cent stake in Boston Dynamics, whereas Hyundai Motor and its associates, Hyundai Mobis and Hyundai Glovis, will take the 60 per cent stake.

Though nothing official has come up from Hyundai Motor and SoftBank, a few media reports have stated that the Korean carmaker is expected to announce the acquisition later today, after getting a nod from the board of directors.

Also read: Why Hyundai-Kia backed Arrival Ltd chose a Nasdaq listing?

Boston Dynamics, which was founded in 1992, has manufactured a wide range of products, such as BigDog, Spot, Atlas, and Handle. Spot, which is a dog-shaped four-legged robot that can climb stairways. The innovation has grabbed media attention despite that it has not proved to be that successful commercially.

Boston Dynamics was sold to SoftBank in 2017 by Google, which had acquired the company in 2013.

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