Honda Motor Company, a Japanese automaker, is betting big on new technologies such as autonomous driving and generative AI in the future as it seeks to enable people to transcend various constraints such as time and place while providing holistic mobility solutions, according to the company's President and CEO Toshihiro Mibe. Mibe unveiled the autonomous vehicle Cruise Origin at the Japan Mobility Show, and Honda plans to launch a driverless ride-hailing service in Japan using the vehicle in early 2026, along with the 'Honda CI-MEV' self-driving micro-mobility vehicle for last-mile mobility.

In addition, the company unveiled the Prelude Concept electric sports car, which he stated "will become the prelude for our future models" of sporty models.

"The mobility products and services that embody Honda's dreams will enable people to 'transcend various constraints such as time and place' and to 'augment their abilities and possibilities,'" Mibe said during his keynote speech.

Those two are essential values of all types of mobility products, and services Honda has offered for the past 75 years since its founding, and they are the values Honda wishes to continue offering now and in the future, he added.

He stated that Honda's self-driving vehicle, 'Cruise Origin,' will allow people to transcend time constraints because it can be completely private, and users can use their travel time more freely, such as holding a meeting or having fun with the family without worrying about other people around them.

"Together with GM and Cruise, Honda is planning to launch a driverless ride-hail service using the Cruise Origin in Japan in early 2026," Mibe said in a statement.

"At Honda, we began using generative AI to support our designers' ability to demonstrate their creativity," he said, adding that generative AI will generate design drawings of future mobility at the ongoing Japan Mobility Show.