By the year 2025, Honda intends to have autonomous vehicles on sale and on the road, the company announced in a statement on June 8.
The Japanese automaker announced plans to have its Honda and Acura vehicles equipped with SAE Level 3 capability by 2020 and SAE Level 4 capability by 2025. SAE International’s classification system describes levels of driving automation, with Level 3 representing a "conditional automation" level in which "the driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task with the expectation that the human driver will respond appropriately to a request to intervene."
SAE Level 4 represents "high automation" in which "the driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even if a human driver does not respond appropriately to a request to intervene."
These announcements were made Honda Motor Co., Ltd. President & CEO Takahiro Hachigo at a media briefing held at Honda R&D Co., Ltd. in Japan, where the media could test drive Honda automated vehicles technologies in a series of complex driving scenarios, including systems with advanced artificial intelligence.
"We will strive to achieve the technological establishment of Level 4 automated driving for personal car use by around 2025," said Hachigo. "We are striving to provide our customers with a sense of confidence and trust by offering automated driving that will keep vehicles away from any dangerous situation and that will not make people around the vehicle feel unsafe."
Honda notes in a press release that the company is rapidly advancing its deployment of advanced safety and driver-assistive technologies in Honda and Acura vehicles on the road today, through its Honda Sensing and AcuraWatch suite of features, which "serve as both a perceptual and technological bridge to the highly-automated vehicles the future." Nearly 500,000 Honda and Acura vehicles on U.S. roads today feature these technologies, including autonomous emergency braking (AEB) via the Collision Mitigation Braking System (CMBS), Lane Keeping Assist (LKAS), Road Departure Mitigation (RDM) and Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC).
View the Honda press release.
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James Carroll
Former VSD Editor James Carroll joined the team 2013. Carroll covered machine vision and imaging from numerous angles, including application stories, industry news, market updates, and new products. In addition to writing and editing articles, Carroll managed the Innovators Awards program and webcasts.