General Motors, Honda teaming up to produce selfdriving vehicles

General Motors and Honda are teaming up on selfdriving vehicle technology as big automakers and tech giants race to develop the next generation of personal transportation.

Japan’s Honda Motor Co. will invest $2.75 billion in the autonomous vehicle unit run by General Motors Co. — called GM Cruise, which is considered a leader in the nascent industry.

The goal, the companies said Wednesday, is to de velop an autonomous vehicle that can be produced at a high volume and deployed globally. They will also explore commercial ways to use the Cruise network around the world.

The partnership comes as the main players in the autonomous vehicle space shift their focus from developing the technology to figuring out how to make the systems safer and more affordable.

Teaming up is a way to add a layer of safety, with some groups using one company’s software to operate a vehicle and a part ner’s software to act as a backup, said Sam Abuelsamid, a Navigant Research analyst.

“As companies move from the research phase into the production phase, there’s a lot of additional complexity that has to be added to those already complex systems,” he said.

Ridehailing giant Uber announced in August a partnership with Toyota to develop autonomous vehicles just months after one of its selfdriving cars struck and killed a pedestrian who was crossing a dark street in Arizona.