More and more automakers are investing in autonomous tech and today GM announced it’ll be joining up with Honda to build an autonomous vehicle, with a lot of money promised to change hands.
General Motors said that Honda will be working with it and its autonomous division, Cruise, to create a purpose-built, high-volume autonomous vehicle that can be used in a variety of situations. Honda will invest about $2 billion over the next 12 years for these autonomous projects.
GM acquired Cruise, a San Francisco-based autonomous driving tech company, in 2016 for $1 billion. Honda’s contributions will include a $750 million equity investment in the company as well, which GM notes will bring the total investment to the project up to $2.75 billion.
GM released a shadowy rendering, above, which shows what the project could yield.
The two companies actually have worked together many times before. GM and Honda have previously announced that they were also partnering to develop the next generation of batteries for their electric cars. And in 2013, they joined up for a hydrogen fuel-cell initiative.
This past June, Jalopnik obtained emails that seemed to suggest that GM Cruise was aiming to deploy a pilot program in San Francisco of autonomous cars without a driver very soon. GM, also, has said that it wants to use a fleet of autonomous Chevy Bolts as a ride sharing service in multiple cities by 2019.