Honda invests in GM's Cruise to build self-driving car

Honda is collaborating with General Motors (GM) and investing $750 million in self-driving car start-up Cruise. The company plans to invest an additional $2 billion over the next 12 years to develop an autonomous car based on Cruise's software. With this investment, Cruise has three major shareholders - General Motors, Softbank, and Honda. General Motors will continue to remain the majority shareholder.

In 2015, Honda announced that it intended to build a partial self-driving car by 2020. In 2017, the company announced that it planned to build cars with level 4 self-driving capability by 2025 and also released a video showcasing freeway-only autonomous capabilities. Level 4 autonomy is awarded to cars that have fully self-driving capabilities, but only in certain locations and weather conditions.

Honda has found itself lagging in the race to build a self-driving car. It will be hoping that the tie-up with Cruise will help it accelerate its programme and allow it to launch a level 4 self-driving car earlier.

Cruise's main rival Waymo has ordered Chrysler Pacifica minivans. It is also working with Jaguar to build up to 20,000 self-driving I-Pace cars.

Cruise currently modifies Chevrolet Bolt cars to accommodate self-driving capabilities. On the other hand, the Honda vehicle will be built from scratch.