Waymo, the name might seem familiar if you’ve been keeping up with autonomous driving technologies on the interwebs of late. This spin-off company born out of Google parent Alphabet is currently in talks with Japanese automaker Honda to also retrofit their vehicles with the bulky self-driving rig on top and use them for on-road tests.
This announcement from Honda comes on the heels of the announcement of the spin-off company last week, followed by the reveal of the 100 modified Fiat Chrysler Pacifica minivans. Waymo has signed a non-exclusive deal with them to integrate their autonomous technology into Fiat’s vehicles and set them free to drive themselves and adapt over time.
For the past six months, the engineers from Waymo and Fiat have been working closely to retrofit Pacifica minivans with their self-driving technology stack. Since the partners were working together, they have made certain modifications to the minivan’s electrical, powertrain, chassis and structural systems.
The grand reveal of these modified cars has other automakers hungry for attention. They are now willing to join the self-driving revolution, which was debuted by Google but is now being led by other technology behemoths like Uber and nuTonomy. The latter being the very first technology startup to flag public trials of their autonomous vehicles in Singapore, followed by the former in Pittsburgh.
In the official blog post, Honda mentions that it might work on a model similar to already signed up automobile partners. The Japan-based automaker’s R&D engineering team would work closely with Waymo engineers. The blog post further adds,
As part of the discussion on technical collaboration, Honda could initially provide Waymo with vehicles modified to accommodate Waymo’s self-driving technology. These vehicles would join Waymo’s existing fleet, which are currently being tested across four U.S. cities.
This technical collaboration between Honda researchers and Waymo’s self-driving technology team would allow both companies to learn about the integration of Waymo’s fully self-driving sensors, software and computing platform into Honda vehicles.
This move from the company falls in line with their own ideologies as well the with company they are working on a partnership. Honda had previously stated that their ambition is the release of autonomous production vehicles by 2020, thus, leading to the formation of a collision-free society. While Google, who recently announced Waymo, have decided to distance themselves from manufacturing their own vehicles in favor of partnering with automobile manufacturers.
With this initial step in the direction of complete autonomy, Honda is hoping to speed up the development and deployment of its very own self-driving vehicle fleet. It is currently offering a semi-autonomous software and hardware package but is looking to eventually offer their vehicles along with a driverless tech companion. And this is only possible if the said partnership with Waymo is achieved.
