Since Waymo retired its Chrysler Pacifica fleet in 2023, all robotaxis operated in the US have been battery-electric. This is why Hyundai considering autonomous driving tech for internal-combustion-engine vehicles is unusual, to say the least. And yet, the Korean carmaker thinks it knows how to make old and new technologies work together in harmony.
Autonomous vehicles are almost exclusively powered by batteries, and there's a simple reason for that. Autonomous driving usually requires a state-of-the-art software stack, and legacy carmakers have been unable to develop good software. It's also much easier to install autonomous driving tech on an electric vehicle, which has been designed from the get-go to be controlled by software.
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