Yanmar

Last year, Yanmar announced that it was looking at developing a maritime system using hydrogen fuel cells from Toyota's Mirai production line. Now a passenger boat prototype has hit the water off the coast of Kunisaki in the Oita Prefecture in Japan.

​Perhaps best-known for its diesel engines and robotic agricultural equipment, Japanese company Yanmar also makes personal watercraft. Its latest addition to the latter category is a little something known as the Wheeebo, which is kind of like an aquatic Segway.

​It was just this July that Japan's Yanmar Agri Corporation unveiled a line of driverless agricultural tractors. Now, as part of the same Smartpilot system, the company has announced an autonomous rice seedling-transplanter.

We've had autonomous cars, autonomous trucks, and autonomous buses, and now Osaka-based diesel engine manufacturer Yanmar is introducing a new line of robotic tractors that operate in autonomous and semi-autonomous modes.

Diesel has traditionally been the fuel of the maritime industry, which makes the absence of a diesel outboard engine even more puzzling. Production of the 50 hp Yanmar Dtorque 111 turbo-diesel has begun and the benefits over traditional outboard engines seem overwhelming.