It’s being reported that the vehicle manufacturer Toyota is investing $500 million in Uber.
Included in the deal is the ability for Toyota to outfit its cars with Uber’s self-driving technology, according to sources that spoke to TechCrunch.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the deal, though TechCrunch claims to have verified the news through an independent source of its own.
This agreement is supposedly different from Uber’s deal with Volvo. Instead of Uber owning the vehicles that it equips with autonomous capabilities, either Toyota or some kind of fleet operator will. Perhaps Toyota is even going to go down a similar road as Tesla and build cars that can be driven, but also drive themselves.
Toyota has had its sights set on the self-driving market for a while. In early 2017 it debuted its first generation of self-driving tech. Since then it has been expanding on that project as well as working on new ideas.
One of the company’s ideas is to develop autonomous cars that can help the elderly or disabled drive safely. This new tech could switch between assisted driving and full self-driving, according to TechCrunch’s report.
Source: TechCrunch
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