Toyota and SoftBank enter into joint venture on self-propelled cars

Toyota and SoftBank have set up a joint venture for self-propelled cars. The intention is that Toyota’s e-Palette concept will be realised within this joint venture. It is also hoped that the development of services around autonomous vehicles will accelerate.

The two companies are working together to create a platform to offer services within self-propelled vehicles. The idea of the two companies is that fewer and fewer people will ever have their own car. This offers opportunities: cars could become a platform – think of a mobile shop.

Joint venture Monet

The joint venture is called Monet and starts with a relatively small initial investment of $17.5 million. SoftBank owns just over half of the company. The idea is that the company’s concept will first be rolled out and developed in Japan and then in the rest of the world.

Junichi Miyakawa, SoftBank’s CTO, is appointed CEO of Monet. He explains the reasoning behind the new partnership as follows: SoftBank and car manufacturers cannot do everything on their own. We want to work to help people with limited access to transport.

Rolling out the E-Palette

Within the collaboration, Toyota and SoftBank will work together to develop Toyota’s E-Palette mobility service by The cars within that service fall into the mobility-as-a-service spectrum and are scalable. In this way, cars could be used to send parcels, to deliver pizzas, but also to bring several people to their destination.

Toyota will produce the hardware and software needed for these vehicles. It is also planned that the first e-Palette services will already be on the streets in the second half of the next decade. SoftBank’s technology is also used to collect and analyse transport data. For example, it must be ensured that cars are used efficiently.