Honda and Waymo Partnership is Innovation on Self Driving Cars

Honda is the latest carmaker with the plans to place a brand new technology to its vehicles. Its partnership with Waymo, the company born out of Alphabet's Google Car research project, will open a new chapter in self-driving tech.

According to Forbes, it can be remembered that Honda already announced plans to put vehicles with automated driving capabilities on the road by 2020. 

However it said today it will also explore placing Waymo's technology on its vehicles as a different approach to bring fully self-driving technology to the market.

According to Forbes, the discussions on the technology are in its early stages. Honda's research and develop subsidiary said it will provide Waymo with vehicles modified to accommodate Waymo's self-driving technology.

This will be included in Waymo's existing fleet that already hass 100 Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans, which are currently being tested across four cities in the US.

The minivan was an optimum choice given it's useful in geo-fenced areas like congested cities or campuses where fully self-driving vehicles make the most sense and where they will likely be deployed first.

Driverless shuttles can be a good way to transport employees around a corporate campus or to help commuters get from the train to a nearby office.Waymo did confirm to have plans to start a ride-sharing service with Chrysler's minivans as part of its shift from the laboratory to a commercial enterprise. Waymo will deploy a semi-autonomous version of the Pacifica for the new service as early as the end of 2017.

According to Recode, if the two companies reach a formal agreement, Honda said its engineers in Silicon Valley and Tochigi, Japan would work with Waymo engineers in Mountain View, California and Novi, Michigan to explore the potential of a broad range of automated driving technologies.

Regardless, as the partnership still did not clarify just how many vehicles Honda will commit to the partnership, Honda may provide a limited number of vehicles to Waymo for the company to retrofit with its self-driving hardware and software.