Nissan to Partner With Japanese Government on Self-Driving Car Project

The Japanese government wants to get serious about self-driving vehicles, and it’s inviting three of the country’s largest automakers to partner up to make it happen.

The Nikkei, an Asian daily business paper, reports that Japanese auto giants Toyota, Honda and Nissan will team up with the government, as well as Panasonic and Hitachi, to develop new technologies for implementation in self-driving vehicles. The project will also enlist the help of the University of Tokyo and Nagoya University for data analysis.

The partnership comes in response to recent progress made by American and German automakers in the realm of self-driving cars. The Nikkei reports that Japan hopes to make strides in standardizing self-driving car technology in order to remain competitive with other global companies.

The meeting is expected to be held sometime this summer. According to the Nikkei, the first step of the project is to standardize software utilized in autonomous vehicles. Later, the project will move towards developing infrastructure associated with getting self-driving cars on public roads.

At Sheehy Nissan of Mechanicsville, we’re certainly excited to see Nissan involved in such an ambitious project. We look forward to seeing how this partnership will contribute to making self-driving cars a reality.