Honda Legend gets Level 3 semi-autonomous driving tech

KUALA LUMPUR: Big news coming from Honda, the automaker has acquired permission from the Japanese government to enable its cars with Level 3 semi-autonomous driving technology. The said system by Honda is called Traffic Jam Pilot and will be offered in the Legend sedan before March 31, 2021.

Honda's press release read "received the required type designation for Level 3 automated driving". So, as mentioned-earlier Honda can now offer Level 3 tech in its cars, however, under certain circumstances. Though exact parameters for using the self-drive system aren't out at the moment, Honda in its press release announced the rules given by the government to use the system.

The official PR reads following rules -

• The equipment must not cause any concern that compromises the safety of vehicle occupants or other road users under the operable driving environment conditions.
• The equipment must include a driver monitoring function to monitor the condition of the driver
• The equipment must not operate unless all required operable driving environment conditions are fulfilled
• The equipment must adopt cyber security measures to prevent security threats such as unauthorized access
• Before any of the operable driving environment conditions become unsatisfactory, the equipment must warn the driver of the transfer of control (handover) back to the driver and must continue safe driving until the handover is completed. When the handover cannot be made, the equipment must safely stop the vehicle.

Over and above, the government has made a data recording device mandatory for the cars fitted with the Level 3 tech. The said deceive must log data for a six-month period confirming the fulfilment of the operating conditions of the equipment. The operating condition recording device will record -

• The time when the system is turned on/off
• The time when handover warning was issued by the system
• The time when handover was not possible by the driver

Further cars with such systems are required to have a special sticker on the backside, indicating then as an automated vehicle.

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