LAS VEGAS—Move over, Google, Tesla, Ford … and seemingly every other car company. Kia wants in on the autonomous car action.

The car maker hosted its first-ever CES press conference Tuesday, which kicked off with an ambitious promise: to release partially autonomous driving technologies by 2020 and bring a fully autonomous car to market by 2030.

To help it reach those goals, the company today launched a new sub-brand, dubbed "Drive Wise," for its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. Those futuristic systems include: "Highway Autonomous Driving," which can interpret lane markings, allowing the car to stay in its lane or switch without driver input; "Urban Autonomous Driving" for navigating through densely congested environments; and "Preceding Vehicle Following," which helps the car keep a safe distance from those ahead.

Other futuristic features Kia is working on include: an "Emergency Stop System," which will watch your eyes and direct the car to a safe place to stop if it sees you're not paying attention; "Traffic Jam Assist," which takes over in congested traffic; and "Autonomous Valet Parking," which will let drivers control their car into a space—even when they're not sitting in it—right from a smartphone.  

Kia said it's planning to initially invest $2 billion by 2018 to develop these new technologies. Meanwhile, the company recently obtained a special license to test its new autonomous vehicle technologies on public roads in Nevada.

During its press conference, Kia showed a video (filmed just yesterday) of some brave souls trying out an autonomous concept car based on its Sol. Passengers were sincerely shocked as the car started driving itself —one woman accused a fellow passenger of touching something why they had not.

"It's like a roller coaster ride," another person said.

We're pretty sure that's not what Kia was going for, but fortunately, the company has another 14 years to work it out.