From Silicon Valley to Tel Aviv and Seoul, South Korean auto giant Hyundai Motor Group plans to establish five innovation hubs in cities spanning the globe and link them as one sharing platform to drive dynamic growth.

The carmaker opened Hyundai Cradle in Silicon Valley in November to support startups and discover future mobility technology. And it plans to open four more such centers, in Seoul, Tel Aviv, Berlin and Beijing within this year. “Cradle” stands for Center for Robotic-Augmented Design in Living Experiences.

John Suh, vice president of Hyundai Cradle, said that the open innovation project is aimed at surviving in a market where seeking innovative ideas from outside has become a common idea. The carmaker, which develops, designs and even manufactures automotive steel needed for car manufacturing, should let go of its business model of do-everything-by-itself, he added.

“The plan is to secure global talents and strategic and technological experiments,” Suh explained in a meeting with South Korean reporters visiting Hyundai USA’s headquarters on Saturday. “Each office provides a unique window into business opportunities and technological development.”

Suh has been leading Hyundai Ventures, the predecessor of Hyundai Cradle, to support startups and discover future mobility technology. The list of US startup includes SoundHounds that provides voice recognition and driving assistance system using artificial intelligence platform, as well as WaiveCar, which rents electric and ad-laden cars for the first time in the world.

Cradle is not just to support budding enterprises with talents, but is “open” to mergers and acquisitions opportunities, he said. The vice president, however, declined to comment on the budget of Hyundai’s open innovation project.

While Hyundai Cradle is looking into the areas of artificial intelligence, mobility, self-driving, smart cities and robots, other innovation centers in the four other cities will focus on different areas for synergy.

The planned centre in Beijing will seek business opportunities with major information and communication technology companies there, while one in Berlin will look into new technological advances in smart cities and mobility solutions.

Hyundai’s Seoul office will lead the offices’ open innovation activities and plans to hold a mobility forum in Seoul this year to bring creative ideas together, the company added.

The electric-powered concept car shown by Byton at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is touted as a computing device on wheels, equipped with a “digital” lounge featuring a panoramic display acting as a hub for navigation, entertainment and even monitoring the health of its occupants.

Backed by more than $200 million from investors including Chinese tech giant Tencent, Byton — whose name was chosen to suggest “bytes on wheels” — is among the latest entrants to a crowded field of startups and established players looking to emulate Tesla in the race for a new kind of vehicle which can be adapted for autonomous driving.

“This is a product which is tailor-made for the future, which is autonomous and shared,” said Daniel Kirchert, president and co-founder of the Nanjing-based startup.

Byton, led by former executives from Tesla, BMW, Apple and Google, said it expects to launch in China by 2019 and in the United States and Europe by 2020.

“This will be the most advanced vehicle in the market as of 2019,” said chairman and chief executive Carsten Breitfeld, a former BMW executive, at a presentation in one of the first media events at the huge electronics show.

The Byton car will use facial recognition to unlock and adapt to the driver and offer a range of other ways to interact including voice control with Amazon Alexa, touch and gesture.

It will include 5G connectivity to the internet cloud and improve its functions with artificial intelligence.

“It will improve your experience the more it knows you,” said Kirchert.

While other concept electric cars have been promoted at prices of $100,000 or more, the new Byton will face competition from the Tesla Model 3 and offerings from major automakers.

Byton said the car will have a range of more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) before needing a recharge and will be able to “top up” its battery in 15 to 30 minutes.

It will be offered with “level 3” autonomy which enables some functions without a driver and be capable of “level 4” for near-autonomous function from 2020, according to the company.

The company has been recognised as the first Thailand-based company to successfully implement a vocational education program at that level in the country.

All 29 graduates achieved a Level B vocational certificate in automotive mechatronics under the German-Thai Dual Excellence Education Program (GTDEE).

In addition, the students are the first group of Thai vocational students to receive a higher vocational certificate issued by Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) in Germany.

Presiding over the ceremony were Michael Grewe, president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz (Thailand) Ltd, Dr Roland Wein, executive director of the German-Thai Chamber of Commerce and Karl Adam, third secretary of economic and commercial at the German Embassy in Bangkok.

The Automotive Mechatronics Technician Dual Training Program is a two-year higher vocational education course offered by Mercedes-Benz under a partnership of the German-Thai Chamber of Commerce, Samutprakan Technical College, Eastern College of Technology, and Don Bosco Technological College.

In addition to the first-hand opportunity for immersive practice on actual Mercedes-Benz vehicles, students also gained insights on latest breakthroughs in automotive innovations such as safety systems, hybrid engine technology, and groundbreaking electronic systems for vehicles.

All students accepted into the program will be awarded scholarship from Mercedes-Benz authorised dealers and will automatically be hired to work at the after-sales workshops at Mercedes-Benz dealers upon graduation.

The electric carmaker said it now expects to hit a Model 3 production level of 5,000 per week by the end of the second quarter instead of at the end of the first quarter.

The first-quarter target was itself a prolongation of an earlier plan to reach this output by the end of 2017.

“During Q4, we made major progress addressing Model 3 production bottlenecks, with our production rate increasing significantly towards the end of the quarter,” the company said in a securities filing.

“In the last seven working days of the quarter, we made 793 Model 3’s, and in the last few days, we hit a production rate on each of our manufacturing lines that extrapolates to over 1,000 Model 3’s per week,” the company added.

“We expect to have a slightly more gradual ramp through Q1, likely ending the quarter at a weekly rate of about 2,500 Model 3 vehicles. We intend to achieve the 5,000 per week milestone by the end of Q2.”

Tesla, which is led by Elon Musk, said its overall vehicles came in at 29,870 in the fourth quarter and included all-time peaks for the Model S and Model X deliveries.

However, Tesla has been under pressure to ramp up production of the Model 3, which at $35,000 could appeal to a broad market and is around half the cost of its other cars.

Tesla shares fell 2.3 percent in after-hours trading to $31.10.