Toyota to Inject $2.8B Into Autonomous Vehicles

Japanese automotive company Toyota Motor Corp. and group suppliers Denso Corp. and Aisin Seiki Co. announced on Friday they would create a joint venture centered on the research and development of their own automated-driving software, investing more than $2.8 billion.

The venture, which is called the Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development (TRI-AD), will be headed by James Kuffner, Chief Technology Officer of the Toyota Research Institute.

It will be headquartered in Tokyo and will focus largely on external employment with the English language as a prerogative in the hiring of at least 1,000 new workers.

“Building production-quality software is a critical success factor for Toyota’s automated driving program,” Kuffner said.

“This company’s mission is to accelerate software development in a more effective and disruptive way, by augmenting the Toyota Group’s capability through the hiring of world-class software engineers. We will recruit globally, and I am thrilled to lead this effort.”

The automaker launched a third-generation self-driving car platform at CES 2018. The car is currently being tested with a Lexus as the base. It includes a LIDAR array, 360-degree vision, and”Guardian,” the level-three autonomous driving system that Toyota is creating.

Last year, Toyota partnered with Renesas, a Japanese semiconductor maker, to develop processors appropriate for autonomous vehicles.

Toyota is also investing greatly in electric vehicles (EVs) and plans to have at least 10 EVs available in the market by 2020.

Moreover, Toyota is working hand-in-hand with Panasonic in developing more dependable, functional, and cost-efficient batteries for electric vehicles.

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