Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp is boosting acquisitions in mobility technology, adding Renovo Motors Inc, a Silicon Valley software developer, to its Woven Planet Holdings team, which is working on automated driving.
The addition, announced yesterday, follows the purchase earlier this year of CARMERA Inc, a US venture that specializes in sophisticated road-mapping updates made cheaper and faster by using crowdsourced information obtained from millions of Internet-connected Toyota vehicles.
The company has not disclosed the value of either deal.
Photo: AP
Renovo develops automotive operating systems, which Toyota sees as essential to develop programmed vehicles so it can transition to what it calls “a mobility company” that includes more than just cars.
Renovo means “renew” in Latin.
Renovo’s data-management platform enables automakers to continuously learn from their vehicles, using a so-called “complete loop” approach, so vehicles can be made safer and more reliable.
“In Woven Planet and Toyota, we’ve found partners committed to doing exactly what we have always wanted to do on a global scale and that’s a great feeling,” Renovo chief executive officer Christopher Heiser said.
Woven Planet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota, earlier acquired San Francisco-based Lyft Inc’s self-driving division Level 5.
Woven Planet chief executive officer James Kuffner said that more acquisitions might be on the way.
“The big picture is Woven Planet creating a ‘dream team’ of software and vehicle engineering people globally to deliver the world’s programmable and safest mobility,” Kuffner told reporters. “That’s the context.”
“Always as an executive, you are trying to balance the speed and the growth versus the focus and maintaining company culture,” he said. “The larger you grow, the risk is that you slow down.”
“We will keep growing, but we are going to be careful,” he said.
Kuffner declined to comment on an incident at the Paralympics Athletes Village in Tokyo last month, when a Toyota bus equipped with automated driving technology bumped into a Paralympian athlete and injured him.
The incident is still under investigation and might be an example of the kinds of hurdles to be overcome before the technology can be widely used on public roads.
The bus is not approved for widespread use on public roads, but was shuttling athletes and officials at the site during the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
A human driver was on the vehicle as a safety precaution.
Toyota president Akio Toyoda has apologized and promised improvements.
Major automakers are working on various driving technologies.
Some analysts say that companies should avoid suggesting that vehicles with such technology can safely drive themselves.
Woven Planet, known previously as the Toyota Research Institute, is working on technologies spanning smart cities, green energy and mobility solutions, and robotics that are meant to eventually become consumer products, said Kuffner, who has worked on Google’s self-driving vehicles and robots at Boston Dynamics Inc.
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