Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest automaker, said Tuesday it is pushing to commercialize autonomous driving "in phases" from 2020, which is expected to improve safety and provide more convenience to customers.

Hyundai Motor said it will adopt the so-called highway driving assist system in its vehicles in the second half of this year. This would mark the first time that a local carmaker has used the feature. 

The HDA system is designed to keep a vehicle within the lane, maintain a safe distance from the car ahead, and provide a navigation-connected system that gives warnings of maximum and minimum speeds on highway sections.

Its aim is to enhance the driver's ability to cope with diverse situations that could happen on highways.

The function will be applied to the new version of the Equus full-size sedan to be launched in the second half, the company said.

In a demonstration held in Songdo, west of Seoul, Hyundai Motor also unveiled the traffic jam assist system, an autonomous driving function that helps the driver navigate through a congested traffic environment.

This the function helps drivers maintain distance from the car ahead, keep the vehicle within its lane, and navigate traffic jams by detecting and analyzing obstacles and surrounding information.

Based on these technologies and others, Hyundai Motor said it will commercialize comprehensive autonomous driving in its vehicles from 2020, which will "maximize" the safety for drivers in numerous road conditions.

This is part of Hyundai Motor's efforts to develop next-generation smart cars that incorporate automated driving and high-tech features. In January, Hyundai Motor said it would invest 2 trillion won in the smart car area by 2018 and hire researchers and workers who will lead its development.

"We aim to provide partially automated driving in 2015, highly automated driving in 2020 and fully automated driving in 2030," a senior Hyundai Motor official said during the event. (Yonhap)