TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor Corp. , Friday announced its plans to invest about $2.8 billion to develop software for autonomous cars.
Toyota announced it will establish a new company in Tokyo named 'Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development' (TRI-AD) that will accelerate its efforts in advanced development for automated driving.
Toyota has partnered with Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. and Denso Corp. for the development of the self-driving software. TMC, Aisin and Denso plan to invest more than 300 billion yen (about $2.8 billion) in TRI-AD. The new company is targeting a staff of around 1,000 employees. Toyota has targeted 2020 for making commercially available self-driving cars.
James Kuffner, who will lead TRI-AD as its CEO, said 'Building production-quality software is a critical success factor for Toyota's automated driving program. 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.'
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX