In Cars, Hybrids, EVs and Alternative Fuel, International News, Technology / By Graham Chin / 12 August 2015 12:28 pm / 7 comments

Autonomous driving technology is all the rage now, especially amongst big automotive players. Now, two companies in Japan are taking it to the next level, looking to ferry Olympians and attendees of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to the international sports festival’s venues in “robot taxis.”

Japanese social media and gaming company DeNa is partnering up with ZMP, a robotics firm which also has experience in automated driving technology, to set up a joint venture called “Robot Taxi.” The project aims to build a driverless car by the year 2020 for the Tokyo Olympics.

Hiroshi Nakajima, general manager of new business development at DeNa, told Bloomberg that the 2020 Olympics will represent a great opportunity to showcase Japanese engineering to the international community.

As for roles in the joint venture, ZMP will be putting its entire focus on the automated driving tech while DeNa will work on the software side of things. Nakajima explained that the taxis will dispatch according to passengers’ request, and users can hail for a cab through their smartphone in the same fashion as taxi-hailing apps in use right now.

ZMP is no stranger to the game – the company’s RoboCar prototype took a Toyota Prius and equipped it with sensors all over the car’s exterior, which allowed it to navigate around a track on its own. It is reportedly working with a Toyota Estima hybrid, with which the company hopes to transport the elderly and school children in the near future.

Mercedes-Benz has its F 015 autonomous vehicle, while Google has been perfecting its own. The DeNa and ZMP tie-up isn’t the only autonomous project in Japan, of course – the country’s second largest automaker, Nissan is still working on its version of the autonomous vehicle while Toyota is also developing an automated car, though it prefers a driver in the seat rather than a self-driving vehicle.