Toyota, SoftBank in self-drive deal
• Car maker and tech firm eye innovative future
Toyota and SoftBank Group are teaming up to develop self-driving car services, signalling deepening alliances between car makers and tech firms as the race to develop autonomous cars intensifies.
Toyota Motor and SoftBank Group are teaming up to develop self-driving car services, signalling deepening alliances between top car maker and tech firms as the global race to develop autonomous cars intensifies.
Japan’s biggest car maker and its most influential tech firm will jointly develop a platform to operate self-driving vehicles which can be used as mobile shops, hospitals and other services as they envision a future in which fewer people drive their own vehicles.
The tie-up shows that even big, well-funded firms want to share costs and expertise in pursuing promising but risky automotive technologies that have yet to gain widespread consumer acceptance.
The joint venture will start small with initial capital of ¥2bn. SoftBank will own slightly more than half of the business, which will initially focus on Japan and eventually go global.
“SoftBank alone and automakers alone can’t do everything,” said Junichi Miyakawa, chief technology officer at SoftBank who will be CEO of the new company. “We want to work to help people with limited access to transportation.” The partnership will see Toyota and SoftBank work together to develop the car maker’s multipurpose mobility service based on its “e-Palette” concept announced earlier this year, in which Toyota plans to produce the hardware and software for convoys of shuttle bus-sized, self-driving multi-purpose vehicles used, for instance, as pay-per-use mobile restaurants.
The joint company would be called MONET, short for mobility network, and roll out an autonomous driving service using e-Palette by the second half of the 2020s, the companies said in a statement.
SoftBank will provide technology to collect and analyse transportation data to ensure cars are efficiently dispatched when and where they’re needed, they said.
“Toyota is hoping to increase its revenues by combining its own data with the data and expertise which SoftBank has culled from its mobile phone operations,” said Koji Endo, senior analyst at SBI Securities.
“The new company will enable SoftBank to widen its partner network, and it could be hoping to take a lead in developing platforms [for new transport services].”
A slew of automotive techrelated deals and discussions have already resulted in myriad pairings between global car makers, ride-hailing companies and major tech firms.
Honda Motor said on Wednesday it would invest $2.75bn and take a 5.7% stake in General Motors’ Cruise selfdriving vehicle unit, in which SoftBank is also an investor.
On the same day, Daimler and Renault said they may expand their co-operation to batteries, self-driving vehicles and mobility services.
The partnership between the two Japanese companies reflects SoftBank’s growing influence in the emerging fields of AI and autonomous driving, which has been accelerated by its investments via the almost $100bn Vision Fund.
It is also a vote of confidence from SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who has been critical of Japan for lagging overseas rivals, in Toyota’s vision for the future of cars. “He has an image of the future,” Son told reporters, referring to Toyota president Akio Toyoda. “Automobiles are becoming a cluster of semiconductors, not screws, bolts and nuts.” While both firms have been independently developing technologies for self-driving vehicles and car sharing, and each have investments in ridehailing firms Uber, Grab and Didi Chuxing, this is first time they have come together.
Toyota executive vice-president Shigeki Tomoyama said the partnership came after SoftBank’s widespread presence in the ride-hailing industry became apparent — it holds major stakes in the ride-hailing firms it had invested in and played a consolidating role in that industry.
TOYOTA PLANS TO PRODUCE HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE FOR CONVOYS OF BUS-SIZED, SELFDRIVING VEHICLES
Toyoda joked about rumours the two companies did not get along. He recalled rejecting a business proposition from Son 20 years ago, when SoftBank had yet to make its name as one of the world’s largest technology investors. “We are trying to take traditional car making into new fields,” he said. “We realised that SoftBank shares the same vision when it comes to the future of cars, so it’s time that we partner together.”