Toyota acquires Level 5 Lyft
Toyota acquired its Level 5 subsidiary, Lift. Level 5 focuses on developing self-driving cars for shared car service. The acquisition was made by Woven Planet, a Toyota company that is working, among other things, on the smart city that Toyota is currently building in Japan.
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Toyota will pay about $ 550 million for Level 5, of which $ 200 million is direct and the remaining $ 350 million over five years. Toyota explains that the deal brings together a “dream team” of about 1,200 scientists and software engineers to form one of the most diverse, skilled and talented groups in this field. “This announcement places the Woven Planet at the center of the connected and autonomous driving movement.” Woven Planet and Lyft also signed a contract to use Lyft’s systems and data to secure and commercialize autonomous driving technology. of Woven Planet.
Safer
“This acquisition takes our mission to develop the world’s safest mobility at scale a step further,” said James Kovner, CEO of Woven Planet. Lyft, in turn, says it has been operating on its transportation network, including autonomous driving, for nine years. The company, which offers all types of transportation, is one of the largest in the United States and Canada and also the biggest competitor to Uber there.
Connected
At the same time, Toyota announced that it will work with Suzuki, Subaru, Daihatsu and Mazda to develop technical specifications for the next generation of in-vehicle communication devices. Japanese car companies want to achieve more standardization in order to offer safer and easier connected services.
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