Honda Plans New Autonomous Features but Sees Long Road Ahead to Self-Driving Cars

HAGA, Japan--Honda Motor Co. said it would focus for now on partially autonomous driving technology to improve safety, adding itself to the list of auto makers that say fully self-driving cars aren't ready for prime time. The Japanese auto maker, an investor in General Motors Co.'s Cruise self-driving unit, this week showed off a prototype system that allows a car to automatically overtake slow-moving vehicles on a highway. It plans to roll out the technology globally starting in 2024, and it says it has found ways to use less-expensive radar and sensor technologies to make the system affordable for mass-market cars. An alert human driver still needs to be at the wheel. Honda's executive chief engineer, Mahito Shikama, said the company intends to focus on technologies such as the automatic passing system and other crash-prevention measures that fall short of full autonomy.