Hondas Getting Super Cruise-like Hands-free Driving Capability

Honda has hands-off semi-autonomous driving technology in its sights, but it will still be a few years before it reaches U.S. shores, instead coming to the China first. The technology is an evolution of the current Honda Sensing system and will be called Honda Sensing 360.
That new technology will qualify as a Level 3 autonomous driving system when it arrives in the U.S. in 2030, per Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) guidelines. SAE guidelines are largely recognized as automotive industry standards.
In order to qualify as a Level 3 system, the technology must allow a driver to not responsible be responsible for control of the vehicle until requested by the system or the driver takes over because they choose to.
No automaker in the U.S. currently offers a Level 3 system. Many offer a Level 2 system where the person in the driver’s seat is always responsible for the vehicle even if their feet are off the pedals and hands are off the steering wheel. They must constantly supervise these support features, according to the SAE definition. General Motors’ Super Cruise and Ford BlueCruise qualify under these guidelines.
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Nissan’s ProPilot Assist safety and driver assist technology is also considered Level 2. Like a vehicle that has its suspension and drive dynamics tuned differently from region to region to better meet buyer expectations, Nissan tunes its technology differently by region.
“Despite a slight naming difference, Nissan’s ProPilot Assist 2.0 system offers the same feature suite in the U.S. and Japan, however some parameters are slightly modified due to speeds and driver behavior in their respective countries,” Ryan Rumberger, Autonomous Driving Performance Engineer, Nissan Technical Center North America told Newsweek. “With regards to Nissan’s Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), certain features do vary due to specific country regulations and customer usage.”
Nissan ProPilot Assist 2.0 is only offered on the Ariya EV.
The company recently announced a Level 3 system is on the way, debuting in Asia first. Nissan’s advanced system is designed for highway use and like the Ford and GM’s, it enables hands-off driving. With navigation coordinates plugged in, it will change lanes and steer the vehicle onto connecting highways when necessary.
“It’s really just a matter of differing consumer priorities in each market. Not to say that US consumers don’t care about ADAS features, they do, but to compete in the Chinese market, there is significant demand for higher levels of ADAS tech with less price sensitivity than the average US buyer may feel toward these features,” a Honda spokesperson told Newsweek.
“While I can’t say how much, there is a cost difference between our version of Honda Sensing vs. Honda Sensing 360. We’ll spend the next few years working to bring down that difference before we introduce it to US customers, when they’ll hopefully also see such features as a greater priority in their purchase decisions.”
Currently, 99 percent of Honda vehicles sold in the U.S. and Japan come with the Honda Sensing suite of safety and driver assist technology. The system has been updated for new models. A newly expanded field of view for the car’s detection systems improves its ability to recognize attributes of objects like pedestrians, cars, road lines and road signs.
Cars, trucks and SUVs with the Honda Sensing system now have blind spot monitoring technology as standard. Traffic jam assist, low-speed braking control and traffic sign recognition are also on the models. Honda’s updated its adaptive cruise control with low-speed follow functionality and lane keeping assist technology for more natural responses.
The 2023 Honda CR-V just added a driver attention monitor, which will play a part in the new Honda Sensing 360 system when it comes to market.
Honda says that Sensing 360 will “realize new functions to reduce driver burden by detecting abnormal conditions occurring to the driver and vehicle’s surroundings to prevent collisions”. And, that they will be added to Honda Sensing 360 in 2024.
Honda Sensing 360 comes with emergency braking for vehicles and pedestrians, lane change assistance and collision mitigation. Upgrades over Honda Sensing include Advanced In-Lane Driving and Advance Lane Change with Hands-off Function, meaning the vehicle will stay within lane lines, follow a car ahead and change lanes automatically.
The new Driver Emergency System will stop the vehicle in its lane if a driver is unresponsive. Fresh Exit Warning technology watches for approaching traffic and alerts occupants so they don’t open the door.
After Honda Sensing is replaced by Honda Sensing 360, the automaker will move forward with Honda Sensing Elite on its top models.
Elite will have automatic parking with an automated valet function and driver assistance on all roads, including surface streets. Most advanced driver assistance functions are currently reserved for highways.
Honda says it will “strive to equip” all of its models with Sensing globally by 2030 and all new models in major markets with Sensing 360 in the same time frame. Sensing Elite will come after that.