Toyota to partner with Uber for Driverless Cars

Global: The Japanese company Toyota is partnering along with Uber to develop cars that are self-driven. They are going to invest USD 500 million in Uber as a part of their plan to develop self-driven cars at a larger scale. This collaboration and investment will have a positive impact on the automobile industry in the near future. Toyota Motor Corporation stated that this plan will involve the production of autonomous cars at a massive rate. These cars will then be deployed at the Uber’s network. This is a joint venture between both the firms to catch up with their rival companies in the market of self-driven cars which is becoming a competitive market with passing days. Though Uber is mounting losses, it is still getting a value share of USD 72 billion. The firm rolled out a press release according to which, the integration of self-driving technology from each company will be into purpose-built Toyota vehicles. The trails for the cars will be starting from 2021 and the fleet will be based on the Toyota Sienna Minivan model. Toyota’s Executive Vice President Mr. Shigeki Tomoyama said “This agreement and investment marks an important milestone in our transformation to a mobility company as we help provide a path for safe and secure expansion of mobility services like ride-sharing.” Toyota along with Uber was seen to be lagging behind in the development of self-driven where as competitors like Waymo were getting much ahead. Uber did have self-driven cars in the past but after an unfortunate accident in Tempe, Arizona where a pedestrian was killed in an Uber self-driving trails, Uber had scaled back its self-driven cars. In fact Uber totally stopped the operations of self-driven cars in Arizona. Uber was in a dire need of external help for its self-driven cars and with this merger it received that help. It is an amazing opportunity for Toyota as well. Uber has been facing a lot of losses in its autonomous cars section every day. The fatal accident proved to be a dent in the company profile along with an expensive lawsuit. Uber does not have a lot of self-driven cars too when you compare with Waymo who are growing at a very good rate. With the expenditures and the R&D cost getting divided and shared between the two companies, it will be a relief for both the companies and also a delight for the shareholders of Uber. This deal not only strengthens Uber’s existing relationship with Toyota but also moves forward Uber’s strategy that it had taken up to develop their self-driven car technology. On the other hand, Toyota’s shares have also spiked ever since the merger has been announced. According to BlueWeave Consulting, self-driven car market is likely to grow over the forecast period owing to high demand from car manufacturing companies. The prominent car services providing companies will acquire or enter into partnership with leading car producers to serve the industry efficiently. Growing demand for better car services will support the self-driven car service industry over the years thus, positively favoring the automotive cars market.  Moreover, top companies like Suzuki, Hyundai, etc. are predicted to get into such partnerships or agreement contracts to gain higher market share in terms of revenue.