(KBS 2TV)

Wednesday’s episode of “Descendants of the Sun” featured a romance scene between Master Sgt. Seo Dae-young (Jin Goo) and 1st Lt. Yoon Myung-joo (Kim Ji-won). Seo, while driving his car in an urban area, turns to Yoon and grabs her smartphone. The car runs safely even though he has taken his hands off the steering wheel. Later on the running car, Seo boldly holds Yoon’s cheeks and kisses her.

This all happened after Seo touched a button on the steering wheel.

(KBS 2TV)

The scene was a part of Hyundai Motor’s product placement for its Genesis EQ900, but are car autopilot systems really so advanced?

Self-driving functions are already available in some vehicles, including the Genesis EQ900. However, local reports doubt real-life drivers could follow Seo’s example yet.

Unassisted driving, as depicted in the TV series, could be managed somewhat by using a combination with two features: lane keeping assistance and the adaptive cruise control.

(Hyundai Motor)

The lane-keeping assistant ensures a vehicle stay on a lane as the camera on a front side monitors the lane, while the ACC allows the car to keep the appropriate distance between other cars on the same lane.

However, lane-keeping assistance can only be used on roads with single or double white line road markings, as researchers are working on how to get the system to better read lane lines or broken lines.

The completely unassisted driving function usually only works for about 10 seconds before turns or other changes force it to deactivate, according to a news report by ZD Net. People can drive unassisted for minutes, but it’s only possible when the car is on a highway where drivers have no need to change lanes, make signals and so on.

Moreover, the function Seo used, according to news broadcaster YTN, is not the latest technology, as the model car was the previous version of Genesis EQ900.

(Hyundai Motor)

The Korean government projects that standards for cars that can run without human input could materialize in 2020. Kia Motors expects to kick off mass production of autonomous cars starting in 2030.

In real life, Seo can kiss Yoon while driving in about 20 years.

By Son Ji-hyoung (json@heraldcorp.com)