Honda and General Motors team up to develop autonomous vehicles

Honda has entered into collaboration with the General Motor’s tech startup, Cruise, to make its mark in the self-driving cars space. According to the agreement, Honda will invest $750 million upfront and another $2 billion over the next 12 years. This investment lets the Japanese carmaker take a 5.7% stake in General Motors Co’s Cruise self-driving vehicle unit.

Honda has also joined hands with Japan’s SoftBank to back the venture and manufacture vehicles in large volumes for worldwide usage. Though the idea regarding the looks of the autonomous vehicle is not yet known, Kyle Vogt, the founder and CEO of Cruise, describes it as innovative, space-efficient and multi-purpose.  He also mentions that it is also not going to look like any other ‘car-like’ vehicle. However, Kyle is enthusiastic about deploying the autonomous vehicles as soon as possible. He said, “Our intent is to go pretty quickly on this as we have with everything else. I would not look to the 12 years (length of the Honda-GM agreement) as an indication of when our next vehicle may become available.”

According to the ongoing efforts, it is speculated that the company will officially launch its ride-hailing service in San Francisco because that’s where Cruise has its headquarters and is constantly testing its Chevy Bolts on public roads. The General Motors and Honda’s relationship along with their electric vehicles and close integration with Cruise might easily make them the leaders in autonomous vehicle technology.