YOKOHOMA: Isuzu Motors Ltd. said Wednesday that it will launch as early as fiscal 2027 a truck and bus business featuring Level 4 autonomous driving technology, which allows fully driverless vehicles to operate under certain conditions.

The Japanese automaker hopes that the move will help address a labor shortage in the Japanese logistics sector. Isuzu plans to collaborate with existing bus and logistics companies under the initiative.

Isuzu President and Chief Operating Officer Shinsuke Minami told a press conference in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, that autonomous driving technology is easier to introduce for trucks and buses, which often run on fixed routes, than for passenger cars.

The technology is “very much needed in the logistics industry, where there is a shortage of drivers,” he said.

Isuzu also said it plans to nearly double revenues to 6 trillion yen in fiscal 2030, which ends in March 2031, from the current level.

The automaker also aims to increase its new vehicle sales to over 850,000 units in fiscal 2030 from some 680,000 units in fiscal 2023 by developing new markets in Africa and the Middle East.

It will spend 1.6 trillion yen on existing businesses, including for internal combustion engine vehicles, in addition to the 1-trillion-yen investment it pledged last year to develop electric vehicle technology.

Some demand for internal combustion engine vehicles will remain even after fiscal 2030, Minami predicted, saying that electrifying commercial vehicles “will take time.”

JIJI Press