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TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp.7203.T) and SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) stated that they would partner to develop automotive services based on autonomous driving technology, such as hospital shuttles, as they envisioned a future in which fewer people would drive their own vehicles.
Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda and Executive Vice President Shigeki Tomoyama pose for a photo with SoftBank Group Corp President and CEO Masayoshi Son and the technical director and representative of SoftBank Corp. Junichi Miyakawa at their joint press conference in Tokyo, Japan on October 4, 2018. REUTERS Issei Kato
The partnership between the largest Japanese automaker and its most influential technology giant shows that even well-funded big players fear being left behind in the development of autonomous and connected cars.
"SoftBank alone and automakers alone can not do everything," said Junichi Miyakawa, chief technical officer of SoftBank Corp., who will be the CEO of the new company. "We want to work to help people with limited access to transportation."
This announcement builds on a series of business and discussions to share costs and gain expertise that has created a multitude of partnerships between global automakers, the most popular and most successful companies. large technology companies.
Honda Motor Co Ltd (7267.Tannounced Wednesday it would invest $ 2.75 billion and hold 5.7% of the capital of General Motors Co. (GM.N) Self-driving cruise unit, in which SoftBank is also an investor.
On the same day, Daimler AG (DAIGn.DE) and Renault (RENA.PA) indicated that they could expand their cooperation with batteries, autonomous vehicles and mobility services.
The new company of Toyota and SoftBank will start with a capital of 2 billion yen (13.5 million pounds sterling), SoftBank holding a little more than half of the activities.
It will be called MONET, the abbreviation for mobility network, and potential car services could include meal deliveries, shuttles as well as vehicles offering on-board medical examinations, they said.
While the two companies independently develop self-driving and carpooling technologies, they each invest in Uber Technologies tow truck companies. [UBER.UL]Grab and Didi Chuxing, this is the first time they meet.
"We are trying to bring the construction of traditional cars into new areas," Toyota's president Akio Toyoda told reporters. "We realized that Softbank shared the same vision for the future of cars, so it's time for us to work in partnership."
Toyota, which has mainly developed automated driving and artificial intelligence technologies in-house, hopes the future will include convoys of multi-purpose, bus-size, self-driving vehicles used, for example, as paid mobile restaurants and pay services. hotels.
He developed a service called "e-Palette" based on this concept. Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Didi, Uber and Pizza Hut are the first partners in the project and Toyota has announced its intention to use this service to send athletes and guests to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
MONET will deploy an autonomous driving service using e-Palette by the second half of the 2020s, the companies announced. SoftBank will provide technology to collect and analyze transport data to ensure efficient distribution of cars when and where they are needed, they said.
SoftBank has its own autonomous vehicle unit, SB Drive, which develops autonomous driving technology for buses.
Report by Naomi Tajitsu and Sam Nussey; Additional reports by Yoshiyasu Shida and Maki Shiraki; Written by Ritsuko Ando; Edited by Edwina Gibbs
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