Self Driving Kia

This is just a short one, because everything else is everywhere else.

So here is the story, I do a lot of travelling, not a huge amount, but enough.
About once a week I do 650km in a day, and I have a work day in the middle of it.
Fatigue from driving is real, very real.  And safety is something very important to me, so, I decided it was time for a new vehicle.

The first option was obvious, Tesla Model X.   It had to be a X because I tow on these large trips.
But then came the catch, where can I charge with a trailer in Melbourne?  I would need to.  I would need to charge 2 times minimum, possibly 3 times, just to do this trip.
For the most part, thats fine, but the detour for the middle charge would be 30 min, and I can’t charge with a trailer, which would encounter its own detour.
Sorry, Tesla is out.

Next up, *anything*.
So I tried quite a few vehicles with Lane Keep Assist.
Toyota Kluger, Ford Everest, Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento, Mazda Whateveritwas, Audi Q7, VW Toureg, and they all sucked.   All of them!

So next up, lets retrofit something which doesn’t suck onto one of them.

I found several open source platforms, but most seemed way too unrealistic, better off adding a generator to my trailer and getting the X!
Then I stumbled upon Comma.ai OpenPilot.
I spent the day looking at the source code, and decided it looked good.

It supported none of the cars I was considering apart from the Toyota….maybe…
Issue was, the Kluger was crap, compared to the others (Only the Ford Everest was worse to drive!)

So, I was going to have to do everything myself…. lets pick the best car…  within reason.

Reason:

  1. I want another car in a year… and I don’t have an unlimited budget.  I would have been getting a second hand X, don’t get the wrong idea
  2. I don’t care about brand names, or interior appearance, I care about hacking into the can bus, and something comfortable to sit in for hours on end.
  3. I wanted the dealer to know I was going to chop into the loom and hack it, and guarentee me it would not affect warranty.

So, 1, -1 for Toureg and -1 for Q7.
2, -1 for Toyota and Ford
3, -1 for Mazda, Audi, and VW

That put both Hyundai and Kia at the top.

These cars were identical for the most part, but Kia had a better warranty, and a much more willing dealership, so Kia it was.

28th June: Brand New Kia Sorento GT Line, $65000
28th June: EON + Grey Panda, $1200
Early July: Cut into Loom, and install EON and Grey Panda.

This was done at 750km on the odomoter, the car, new.

Now was when I cloned the github repo and began working on it.
This was slow.  First, I did not research on openpilot, I just started filling in holes, and fixing bugs.
I didn’t know the car, I didn’t know Openpilot, and I didn’t know the tools.

A few weeks later, at odomoter of 5500km, I did it, and had the car steering.

On the 17th of July, I recorded this video.

 

I had already spend hours, so many hours, maybe 6 hours, just driving backwards and forwards on that road to get it to steer well enough for that video.

Worth it!   Day 2, 18th of July, I took it for a drive, and recorded this video

And with no further changes, due to being so busy, Day 3 it went on its first 300km trip

Exciting, hell yeah!

After that I spent minimal time on it as I was too busy, but the port has matured a lot!

I’ve added heaps to it, and have it driving just amazing!

I’ve recorded much of it.
Heavy Loads:

Auto Lane Change:

Unique Features:

and so much more!

Best way to see what I’m doing.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXmUBvIuFLjLRuJ0mX298Ng

and

https://github.com/emmertex/openpilot

 

I now support all Hyundai, Kia and Genesis cars for Open Pilot.

We have

Kia Sorento GT Line, 2018: Mine, the first!

A few days later I ported it to 2 active slack users cars.

Hyundai Elanta and Kia Stinger.

After that, Comma got a Hyundai Santa Fe and ported it.

I have now ported many more cars in addition to above.

At this stage, I beleive its safe to assume, if you have a Kia, Hyundai or Genesis with “Lane Keep Assist”
I can make this work on your car!

5 thoughts on “Self Driving Kia

  1. I really like this!!.. allright.. im lost.. where to get manual and instruction on how to install this on my car… plzzz.. my car is Hyundai Ioniq HEV+ Hybrid.. please enlighten me~~~~~~

  2. Hi Andrew, I’m a former computer repairman, taken delivery of a Genesis Sensory Pack. Has Radar Cruise and Lane Departure Warning but not LKAS sadly. Want to experiment with OpenPilot for long trips. Happy to fund your research in return for assistance. Let me know if you’ve got time to chat. (NSW/AU)

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