Honda, historically something of an auto industry loner, is accelerating efforts to forge new partnerships, particularly in the tech space, amid rapid changes in the automotive industry. As a result, it’s upgrading its Silicon Valley Lab into a new, global unit as Honda Innovations tasked with finding new global alliances and partnerships.
The Mountain View, California, unit, which has operations in Israel, will focus on collaboration tied to connected vehicles/Internet of things services, human machine interface technology, robotics and personal mobility. Honda Innovations will also coordinate technical discussions with Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo on integrating its self-driving technology into Honda vehicles. Nick Sugimoto, who was senior program director of the Silicon Valley Lab, was promoted to chief executive officer of the new unit.
“We’ll be the Honda hub globally for open innovation, with much more speed and a little bit more scale,” Sugimoto said. “We’re not disclosing (investment) in detail, but luckily I got a much bigger commitment of resources from management,” he said, declining to elaborate.
(Read more about Honda’s push for tech collaboration in the February 28, 2017 issues of Forbes. Honda Opens Its Doors)
Honda’s move follows a flurry of automotive investments in Silicon Valley in 2015 and 2015, including Toyota’s $1 billion investment in the Toyota Research Institute, Ford’s expansion of its advanced R&D unit in the Bay Area and General Motors’ acquisition of autonomous vehicle tech startup Cruise Automation in early 2016.
Honda Innovations CEO Nick Sugimoto, left, and Dennis Clark, manager of the Honda Xcelerator... [+]
Sugimoto, who joined Honda more than a decade ago, has long served as the company’s chief tech scout. His team was among the first in the industry to work with both Apple to integrate its Car Play system into Honda vehicles and Google’s Android Auto. More recently the Silicon Valley Lab’s Honda Xcelerator tech incubator group has worked with startups including VocalZoom and Leia 3D on next-generation audio and visual tech for Honda vehicles. The Lab’s Honda Developer Studio also works with app makers to create new functional features for Honda and Acura vehicles.
Honda Innovations may eventually add teams in Japan, China and Europe, but it will remain a relatively small operation in terms of headcount, Sugimoto told Forbes. “I won’t say we’ll be doubling or tripling our headcount, but we’ll definitely be expanding here in Silicon Valley and Israel.”
The Silicon Valley Lab has advocated open innovation with tech startups, collaborating on specific projects but foregoing direct financial investment or exclusivity requirements, with a goal of getting new features and technology to market as rapidly and cheaply as possible. That’s now going to spread across Honda’s global operations.
“We’re adding an open innovation angle as a new methodology for all R&D centers to tap into and use to accelerate their process,” Sugimoto said.
“We’re pretty broad in scouting new technology, new innovations from the venture community, not just automobile technology but all aspects of Honda. We’re serving all of them.
