Honda Motor Co., Ltd. HMC has obtained permission to test drive its autonomous vehicles on public roads in California, per Reuters. The Japanese automaker is the tenth company to receive such a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Other companies that already received the permission include Google Inc. GOOG, Volkswagen AG VLKAY, Mercedes Benz, Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA, Nissan Motor Co Ltd. and BMW AG.
Honda also has an autonomous vehicle testing facility in Concord, CA, where it conducts test drives of such vehicles. The automaker, like many others, currently offers several driver-assistance features in its vehicles.
However, the name most associated with autonomous vehicles is not that of an automaker, but the tech giant – Google. The latter has been publicizing its self-driving cars, which are already being tested on public roads in California and Texas. Google has been working on self-driving vehicles since 2010 and plans to introduce these to the public by 2020.
Earlier this year, Mercedes Benz unveiled its self-driving F 015 Luxury in Motion concept vehicle, which has also been driven on San Francisco roads. Tesla too is developing the technology for a completely self-driven car which is expected to take around 5–6 years. Moreover, the electric carmaker is allowing select Model S owners to test a new autopilot feature that allows the car to drive autonomously at highway speed as well as park itself on private property. This feature will be provided as a software update on recent versions of the Model S as well as Model X.
Honda currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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