Toyota Forms New Company To Focus On Self-Driving Vehicles

Toyota is forming a new company called Toyota Research Institute – Advanced Development (TRI-AD) to accelerate its efforts in advanced development for automated driving, the company announced.

In conjunction with two other companies, Aisin Seiko and Denso Corporation, Toyota will develop fully-integrated, production-quality software for automated driving.

Together, the three companies plan to invest $2.8 billion in the venture, with plans to add a staff of 1,000 employees.

"Building production-quality software is a critical success factor for Toyota's automated driving program," stated Dr. James Kuffner, currently Toyota Research Institute chief technology officer, who will lead TRI-AD as its CEO. "This company's mission is to accelerate software development in a more effective and disruptive way, by augmenting the Toyota Group's capability through the hiring of world-class software engineers. We will recruit globally.”

Stated objectives of the new company include creating a smooth software pipeline from research to commercialization, strengthening the collaboration within the Toyota Group and recruiting top-level engineers globally.

At CES in January, Toyota introduced its concept self-driving vehicle.

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