Honda motor co has announced for the first time that it will launch Level 4 self-driving cars that can drive on city roads by 2025, hoping to compete in the future car market, foreign media reported.

Capacity layout, policy, Honda Vision2030 strategy, Honda autonomous, Honda electric,

Honda unveiled its medium-term Vision 2030 strategy on Thursday and said it would quickly expand its joint research and development, procurement and production divisions into electric cars and autonomous vehicles, but it also foreshadwed higher research and development costs for autonomous vehicles than conventional vehicles. Honda has previously said it will introduce a self-driving car that can drive on highways by 2020, but the new goal appears to fall behind rivals such as BMW in introducing cars that can drive on city roads.

Honda said it is also crucial to develop new driving technologies, robots, artificial intelligence services and new energy solutions.

Honda set up an electric-car unit late last year and plans to increase its share of low-emission gasoline-hybrid, plug-in hybrid, battery electric and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles to two-thirds by 2030, up from about 5% today.

By 2025, Honda plans to launch a Level 4 self-driving car, which means it can generally drive itself on city roads or highways. To do so, Honda will need technology such as artificial intelligence, cameras and sensors.

BMW said it would introduce a fully autonomous model by 2021. Nissan plans to launch a self-driving car capable of driving on city roads by 2020.