Honda Motor defined for the first time its strategies to develop autonomous cars which can drive on city roads by 2025, building on its strategy to compete rivals in the auto industry of the future.
Revealing its mid-term Vision 2030 strategy, Honda stated it would increase coordination between R&D, procurement and producing to tame development expenses as it acknowledged it must look beyond standard vehicles to survive in an industry which is moving quickly into electric and self-driving vehicles.
Honda has already defined strategies to market an automobile that can drive itself on highways by 2020, and the new target for city-capable self-driving automobiles puts its progress a little behind competitors like BMW.
“We’re going to put utmost top priority on electrification and advanced safety innovations going forward,” Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo stated.
Establishing brand-new driving technologies, robotics- and artificial intelligence-driven services and new energy options also would be crucial priorities for Honda in the years ahead, the company stated.
Honda developed a department late last year to develop electric vehicles (EVs) as part of its long-held objective for lower-emission fuel hybrids, plug-in hybrids, EVs and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) to represent two-thirds of its line-up by 2030, from about 5 percent at present.
By 2025, Honda has strategy to come up with automobiles with “level 4” standard automated owning functions, indicating they can drive themselves on highways and city roadways under most scenarios.
