South Korea builds an entire ‘city’ to test self-driving cars

There are many reports suggesting that the self-driving cars will take over the world by 2025. Taking a cue from this growing global phenomenon is yet another country – South Korea which, according to reports, is building K-City, 88-acre site to test autonomous cars. The Asian country has started the work on a war-footing as it plans to open K-City later in 2018. The site would be a testing ground for companies and startups which are building driverless cars. The site will kick-start the research and development of driverless cars. Companies planning to build driverless cars would not need any licenses or permits before doing so.

The city will have something more than the public testing spaces don’t have. The city will be loaded with - expressways, bus lanes, parking lots and other areas which self-driving cars will need to learn to navigate. The South Korean government believes that K-City will help automakers and suppliers currently working on self-driving cars.

K-City is two times bigger than MCity, the car testing site in Michigan, used by automakers. Mcity is a research facility at the University of Michigan and the function of Mcity is similar to that of K-City. It offers automakers a controlled environment for testing and development.

Currently, Hyundai and Kia are working on autonomous cars in South Korea. Many other tech companies like Samsung and SK Telecom are also getting in on the action.

According to BusinessKorea reports, experts could benefit from additional data collection done on-site. For example, the data obtained during all this testing could be used for urban planning and other purposes like insurance.

K-City will feature mock inner city, sub-urban roads, expressways etc. According to reports, expressway testing will start in October 2017 and the rest of the facility of the city will open by mid-2018.