Honda joins GM Cruise for the construction of a driverless car

But Seiji Kuraishi, executive vice president of Honda told reporters Wednesday that his partnership with GM Cruise was "exclusive".

"We are going forward by exploiting the strengths of each and want to expand (in) this sector of activity," he said through an interpreter.

The three-way partnership between Honda, GM and its standalone unit is designed to give GM Cruise the "world's best design, engineering and technology resources" to further establish them as a leader in audio-visual technology. with global reach and deployment capability. on the scale, "said Mary Barra, CEO, at the technical and technical center of the company in Warren.

GM and Honda have been working together on fuel cell technology since 2013, a partnership that was reinforced last year when GM and Honda also shared an $ 85 million investment to create Fuel Cell System Manufacturing LLC, the first joint venture of the automotive cell manufacturing sector – at GM's battery assembly plant in Brownstown Township.

The two automakers expanded their partnership on zero-emission vehicles earlier this year with an agreement to jointly develop cells and battery modules. In the contract announced Wednesday, the two companies will work together to build an autonomous vehicle manufactured by GM and not by Honda.

Most of the funding provided by Honda will go to the development of this vehicle, with some contribution to the creation of new opportunities in the Cruise market. The partnership will enable GM and Honda to deploy autonomous vehicles around the world, exploiting the geographic footprint of the two automakers, said GM President Dan Ammann.

The project with Honda is distinct from GM's launch of a driverless driving service next year and focuses on building what Ammann called "the next evolution in the future of transportation".

GM is already building test versions of its cruise-less AV, based on the Chevrolet Bolt EV, at its Orion assembly plant. Vehicle roof modules are built at the Brownstown GM Battery Assembly Plant. GM plans to build its production version of the Cruise AV, with no flywheel or foot pedal, in both plants next year.

"One of the things underrated in this industry is to move from a prototype vehicle covered with sensors and computers to one that can be produced on an assembly line," said Cruise's CEO. , The Detroit News. "It's not an easy task, especially if you want to do it in volume."

But with Honda at the table, this process should progress a little faster: "We can use everything we've learned (working with GM) and apply it to the vehicle we build with Honda." Said Vogt. "This shortens the timeline from the original vehicle to a really great vehicle like the one we are considering."

Both manufacturers aim to build a driverless car from scratch, designed from the ground up to transport people and objects without a driver being needed. GM engineers will work on the basic architecture of the autonomous vehicle. Honda engineers and the cruise team will participate in its overall development, including testing to ensure safety.

This vehicle could include a sophisticated interior with a TV, a mini-bar and flat seats, as Vogt wrote in a Wednesday blog, but it will likely also be designed to work virtually in the Cruise network.

Vogt told The News that "Honda's talents in building space-efficient vehicles" fit perfectly into GM's ultimate goal of a world without congestion, without fossil fuel emissions neither accidents. Both manufacturers also have complementary global footprints, Honda offering GM a gateway to the Japanese market.

"If you think about Honda's geographic reach and how it overlaps – or does not overlap with – the geographic reach of General Motors, it may give you some idea of ​​what we might think of", Ammann said. told investors during a conference call.

Honda's $ 2.75 billion investment comes after Japanese investment firm SoftBank Investment Advisers invested $ 2.25 billion in Cruise earlier this year, boosting GM's fleet of autonomous vehicles at $ 14.6 billion.

GM plans to launch its unmanned fleet of Bolt-based cruise AVs in a city that has not yet been named in 2019. The Detroit automaker earlier this year presented its federal security proposal to install a driverless vehicle without a steering wheel or accelerator pedal. or brake pedal on the public road. GM's efforts to deploy self-driving vehicles accelerated after its acquisition of Cruise Automation in 2016, strengthening the Detroit automaker's credibility with industry observers and investors.

Ammann said the launch of the GM 2019 driverless fleet is still "the target", but has not offered any updates to the schedule.

"We are going as fast as we can to deploy this technology," he said. "The addition of resources can only bring us further and faster."