Established in 2015, Honda Xcelerator supports selected startups with funding for rapid prototyping, access to a collaborative workspace, and pairs the companies with Honda mentors. Focus areas for Honda Xcelerator include Energy Innovation, Human Machine Interface, Personal Mobility, Industrial Innovation, Autonomous Vehicles, Artificial Intelligence, Smart Materials, and Robotics.

The pace of innovation is increasing with the rapid expansion of the global startup community, and has the potential to help Honda transform its future products, services, and business opportunities. With our expanded collaboration in Detroit, Japan, China, and Europe, Honda will be in an even stronger position to discover emerging technologies and establish partnerships to help create new value for our customers.

—Honda Innovations CEO, Nick Sugimoto

At CES 2017, Honda Xcelerator showcased its startup collaborations with partners LEIA 3D and VocalZoom. In partnership with LEIA 3D, Honda developed a driver’s display meter using nano technology that can provide three-dimensional images, switching seamless transitions between different viewing angles for warnings and driver-assistive systems.

Honda collaborated with VocalZoom to apply its optical microphone technology to enhance the in-car experience improving voice interaction inside the vehicle at CES 2017.

Honda Xcelerator will introduce its new startup collaborations at CES 2018. Honda previously established partnerships with incubators MassChallenge (Boston, Mass.) and Drive (Tel Aviv, Israel) and equity crowd funding platform OurCrowd (Jerusalem, Israel) to support outreach to startups in key innovation hubs globally.