Honda and General Motors announced Wednesday in a joint press release that the former will invest a total of $2.75 billion into the latter’s autonomous transportation startup, Cruise, over the next 12 years.
Together, the three will co-develop a fully autonomous vehicle for use by Cruise across the globe, it also serving a variety of purposes including commercial use. The ability to manufacture this vehicle in high volume is one of the program’s goals.
“This is the logical next step in General Motors and Honda’s relationship, given our joint work on electric vehicles, and our close integration with Cruise,” stated General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra in the companies’ joint press release. “Together, we can provide Cruise with the world’s best design, engineering, and manufacturing expertise, and global reach to establish them as the leader in autonomous vehicle technology—while they move to deploy self-driving vehicles at scale.”
“Honda chose to collaborate with Cruise and General Motors based on their leadership in autonomous and electric vehicle technology and our shared vision of a zero-emissions and zero-collision world,” added Honda Executive Vice President and Representative Director COO, Seiji Kuraishi. “We will complement their strengths through our expertise in space efficiency and design to develop the most desirable and effective shared autonomous vehicle.”
Both state that Honda has made an initial $750 million equity investment into the company, and that an additional $2 billion will follow over the next 12 years. This follows an announcement in May that Japanese investment firm SoftBank will lay down a $2.25 billion investment in Cruise, their combined investments inflating Cruise’s post-money valuation to $14.6 billion.
“With the backing of General Motors, SoftBank and now Honda, Cruise is deeply resourced to accomplish our mission to safely deploy autonomous technology across the globe,” concluded Kyle Vogt, CEO of Cruise. “The Honda partnership paves the way for massive scale by bringing a beautiful, efficient, and purpose-built vehicle to our network of shared autonomous vehicles.”