Honda Testing Automated Cars At Former Concord Naval Weapons Station
CONCORD (CBS SF) -- Honda is testing new cars with automated driving at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, the company announced Tuesday.
The 5,000-acre GoMentum Station on the former Navy base has 20 miles of paved city-like roads, buildings and urban infrastructure, making it an ideal environment for testing Honda's new technologies.
The company first demonstrated its automated driving in September, revealing cars that can merge onto and off of highways and change lanes on their own.
Early uses of the technology are already being implemented in Honda's current vehicles, including warnings for drivers leaving their lane or approaching a forward collision, as well as early braking systems, company officials said.
"The city of Concord is very pleased to see Honda bring its advanced automated vehicle research to Contra Costa," Concord Mayor Tim Grayson said in a statement. "We're very hopeful this partnership will continue to support economic growth and spur excitement for high-tech jobs in our community."
The company is also testing vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems. The systems would alert drivers before impending collisions and allow them to call for help when in distress.
"The Concord Naval Weapons Station is an ideal proving ground to augment Honda's research and development efforts because it is a controlled environment that can be continuously modified to represent a wide array of settings that an automated vehicle must navigate, especially for urban operation," Honda researcher Paul Cummings said in a statement.
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