Overview
- Hyundai Motor Group appointed Milan Kovac as a group adviser and said it will nominate him as an outside director at Boston Dynamics to help guide mid- to long-term product strategy and commercialization.
- Kovac previously led Tesla’s Optimus humanoid program and worked on vision-centric Autopilot, leaving the company in mid-2025 after roughly nine years.
- Hyundai said Kovac will join strategic discussions across Boston Dynamics’ portfolio, including Spot, Stretch, Orbit and the Atlas humanoid.
- The appointment follows Hyundai’s CES 2026 reveal of a production Atlas and a plan for factory capacity targeting up to 30,000 robots annually by 2028, with initial deployment planned at its U.S. Metaplant in Georgia.
- Hyundai has aligned external AI partners and leadership moves around its physical AI strategy, including work with Google DeepMind and Nvidia and the recent naming of Park Min-woo to lead its AV/software units.