Stepping into the world of mobile robotics, Hyundai Motor Group acquired a whopping 80 percent share of Boston Robotics, the makers of Spot the robodog, for $880 million. Boston Dynamics and Hyundai will now work together for advanced human mobility.
Spot became famous for herding sheep in New Zealand, inspecting construction sites, and tracking the vital signs of Covid-19 patients. They then proceeded to create a back-flipping humanoid robot known as Atlas.
Hyundai’s investment is a part of its broader strategy of widening its footprint on future mobility technologies. For example, Hyundai previously announced a new division that will focus on creating “walking cars” and similar robots.
Hyundai has described this as another step in its transformation to becoming a “Smart Mobility Solutions Provider.” Hyundai will further focus on autonomous driving, urban aircraft, robotics, and AI. In addition, Hyundai will continue to expand Boston Dynamic’s lineup of mobile machines.
Before Hyundai, Ford had peeked into the workings of the 70-pound quadruped robots for experiments in agility in a venture to save time, increase efficiency and reduce production costs in robotically managed pieces of equipment.
All these achievements caught the eye of Hyundai, and needless to say, they took the shot and bought controlling power shares from the owner Softbank. As a result, the stakes are now split between Softbank and Hyundai, with Softbank taking a 20% share, leaving the rest of the 80% shares to Hyundai.
Thus, the value of Boston Dynamics now has skyrocketed to USD 1.1 Billion.
