Honda, General Motors, and Cruise have teamed up to create a joint venture set to deploy a driverless ride service in Japan in early 2026.
The joint venture, which is going to be established in the first half of 2024, will deploy the futuristic Cruise Origin autonomous vehicle for the service. Users will be able to order a robotaxi through a dedicated app, be picked up at a specified location, and then dropped off. The Origin provides seating for up to 6 occupants sitting face-to-face and the service will be targeted at a wide range of customers, including business people, families, and visitors.
Honda, GM, and Cruise’s service will first consist of dozens of Cruise Origins before expanding to a fleet of approximately 500 vehicles. The service will initially focus on central Tokyo but be expanded to other areas in the future.
“Honda is striving to create the ‘joy and freedom of mobility.’ Through our driverless ride service with Cruise and GM, we will enable customers in Japan to experience a new value of mobility, improve the quality of their mobility experiences and offer the joy of mobility,” Honda Global chief executive Toshihiro Mibe said. “This will be a major step toward the realization of an advanced mobility society. Providing this service in central Tokyo where the traffic environment is complex will be a great challenge, however, by working jointly with Cruise and GM, Honda will exert further efforts to make it a reality.”
Read: Cruise Updates Its Autonomous Vehicles To Better Recognize Emergency Vehicles After Several Gaffes
GM says that Japan could become one of the largest driverless ride-hail markets in the world given the high demand for taxis in the country’s large cities. The country is also facing taxi driver shortages and according to the carmaker, needs new “accessible forms of transportation.”
GM and Cruise have been testing their autonomous robotaxis throughout the United States for many years and already offer ride-hail services in San Francisco, Austin, and Phoenix where it has accumulated more than 5 million driverless miles.
“GM has always been invested in defining the future of transportation and that’s more true today than ever,” GM chief executive Mary Barra added. “The benefits of AVs — from safety to accessibility — are too profound to ignore and through this important partnership with Cruise and Honda, we’re bringing forward innovation that leverages our expertise in cutting-edge software and hardware to help more people around the world get where they need to go.”
