Japan Plans To Have Driverless Cars Ahead of 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Japan plans to begin testing driverless cars on public roads sometime this fiscal year.

In a government strategic review announcement, Japan stressed on driving economic growth. And one way to do this? Put driverless cars on the road as soon as possible.

The strategy was presented at the meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Japan plans to begin the testing of self-driving cars on public roads before April 2019. The government targets to launch them as self-driving car services for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The general public might be able to get their hands on them as early as 2022.

SoftBank Group, a Japanese conglomerate, has partnered with General Motors to develop the driverless cars. The latter received a $2.25 billion investment from Softbank.

“Teaming up with SoftBank adds an additional strong partner as we pursue our vision of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion,” GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra said in a statement previously.

Other strategies discussed in the government strategic review include changing university regulations. The country wants to make it easier or students to earn multi-disciplinary degrees needed to work in artificial intelligence. The government also plans to change some regulations to make it easier for companies to do business.

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