Hyundai and Volkswagen team with Google's former self-driving lead

Both Hyundai and the Volkswagen Group announced today that they are partnering with self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation and will be incorporating the firm's autonomous driving systems into their own vehicles. Hyundai will be working the technology into its latest fuel cell vehicle, debuting next week at CES, while the Volkswagen Group says it could be incorporated into a number of its brands' vehicles, including self-driving Sedric pods, shuttles, delivery vans or trucks. Aurora was launched last year by three big shots in the self-driving world -- Chris Urmson, who headed Google's self-driving project before it was spun out as Waymo, Tesla's Sterling Anderson and Uber's Drew Bagnell. The company is focused on developing highly and fully autonomous driving systems that they can then license to companies like Hyundai and Volkswagen. While this sort of strategy means those companies won't have exclusive technology like they would if they developed it themselves, it allows them to get their hands on it more quickly and while devoting fewer resources to technology that is currently in constant flux.