Kakao Mobility Unveils L4 Autonomous Driving Roadmap, Launches Nighttime Paid Robotaxi Service

On April 23, Kakao Mobility unveiled its roadmap for Level 4 autonomous driving technology in Seoul and has already launched paid nighttime robotaxi services in Gangnam District. The company plans to develop an advanced autonomous driving machine learning model capable of independently handling perception, decision-making, and control, incorporating hardware redundancy to ensure safety. It will also integrate virtual simulation and real-world vehicle data through a vehicle validation platform to accelerate technological maturity. To enhance service reliability, Kakao Mobility is building an "Intelligent Autonomous Driving Integrated Safety Management Platform," leveraging 3D visualization technology to boost passenger trust. The company also plans to establish a 24/7 monitoring center and an automatic anomaly detection and alert system powered by Vision-Language Models (VLMs), creating an end-to-cloud collaborative safety assurance mechanism. Additionally, Kakao Mobility proposed a vision for an open ecosystem to encourage the Korean autonomous driving industry to share training data, high-definition maps, and platform APIs, aiming to establish unified infrastructure across the sector.