Driving seat

Toyota is to invest $500m (£388m) in Uber in a major bet on the future of driverless cars. It comes as Dara Khosrowshahi, above, the transport app’s chief executive, revealed plans to expand to journeys by electric scooters and bicycles.

TOYOTA is set to invest $500m (£388m) in Uber in a major bet on the future of driverless cars, it announced on Monday night.

The funding from the Japanese carmaking giant, which values Uber at more than $70bn, will see the two companies work together on autonomous vehicles.

It marks a significant show of faith in the US transport app, whose driverless car division has been beset by problems in recent months.

Uber suspended all tests of its driverless cars in March after one of its test vehicles killed a pedestrian, the first recorded death involving a driverless vehicle, and it has been plagued by legal battles over its intellectual property.

The division’s heavy costs have also hampered Uber’s route to profitability, one of its chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi’s top priorities.

Toyota made a smaller investment in Uber in 2016, and the US company has already agreed to work on driverless cars with Daimler and Volvo, but Mr Khosrowshahi described the latest investment as “the first of its kind”.

The deal will mean Uber and Toyota’s driverless car safety systems will both be installed in test vehicles, in theory making the cars safer. Trials using Toyota minivans on Uber’s app are set to begin in 2021.

Lyft, a US rival, already has tie-ups with General Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, and Waymo, the driverless car division of Google’s parent company Alphabet.

The deal may be Uber’s last major investment before it goes public, planned by the end of 2019.

“Our goal is to deploy the world’s safest self-driving cars on the Uber network, and this agreement is another significant step towards making that a reality,” Mr Khosrowshahi said.