Toyota Group Members Teaming Up In Self-Driving Joint Venture

author: Jacky Ho   

Four Toyota Motor group members including major automotive parts suppliers Denso and Aisin Seiki are planning to combine their research and development operations on self-driving technology into a single joint venture, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

The new joint venture will develop autonomous technologies related to motion planning, which consist of vehicle controllers responsible for acceleration, braking and steering based on artificial intelligence. AI is playing a large part in the development of self-driving technology today. The idea is to pool the each companies expertise to develop integrated packages of self-driving systems.

The joint venture will also take investment from Jtekt and Advics, an Aisin subsidiary that produces vehicle brake components. Denso is expected to hold the majority stake in the JV.

The partnership will primarily supply Toyota but might also target European, U.S. and Chinese automakers, aiming to raise the competitiveness of the Toyota group as a whole.

The JV aims to better compete with European auto parts suppliers such as Germany's Robert Bosch. The race to commercialize self-driving cars has also attracted powerful companies from outside the auto industry, including a Google affiliate Waymo and China's internet search giant Baidu.

China's Baidu announced its Apollo autonomous driving platform last year. The open platform is designed to accelerate the development of autonomous driving technology in a collaborative effort between partners. Over 100 industry partners have joined Apollo, including Bosch, BMW, Daimler and Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor. All of the Apollo source code is available on GitHub for anyone to use.

Toyota and its luxury arm Lexus plan to commercially introduce advanced self-driving technology as early as 2020, including enabling cars to change lanes without human intervention on expressways.

By the middle of the next decade, the company aims to develop a more advanced version capable of functioning on ordinary roads and achieve what is known as level-4 automation technology, which enables complete self-driving in limited areas without human intervention.

In 2016, the Japanese automaker set up the Toyota Research Institute in Silicon Valley, a subsidiary dedicated to artificial intelligence. Another subsidiary set up in Tokyo with Denso and Aisin this past March develops software for implementing AI technologies in cars.

This new partnership will incorporate AI technology with automotive hardware for autonomous driving.

Jacky Ho