Toyota announce concept vehicle tie in with Uber and DiDi
Toyota Motor Corporation President Akio Toyoda today announced a new mobility service business alliance and e-Palette Concept Vehicle designed to meet the demands of future multi-mode transportation and business applications.
Alliance launch partners include Amazon, DiDi, Mazda, Pizza Hut and of course, Uber. “The automobile industry is clearly amidst its most dramatic period of change as technologies like electrification, connected and automated driving are making significant progress. Toyota remains committed to making ever better cars. Just as important, we are developing mobility solutions to help everyone enjoy their lives, and we are doing our part to create an ever-better society for the next 100 years and beyond. This announcement marks a major step forward in our evolution towards sustainable mobility, demonstrating our continued expansion beyond traditional cars and trucks to the creation of new values including services for customers”, said Akio Toyoda. Unveiled at CES®, the new e-Palette Alliance will leverage Toyota’s proprietary Mobility Services Platform (MSPF) to develop a suite of connected mobility solutions and a flexible, purpose-built vehicle. The new alliance will create a broad-based ecosystem of hardware and software support designed to help a range of companies utilize advanced mobility technology to better serve customers. Launch partners include Amazon, DiDi, Mazda, Pizza Hut and Uber, who will collaborate on vehicle planning, application concepts and vehicle verification activities In the near term, the Alliance will focus on the development of the new e-Palette Concept Vehicle, also unveiled at CES. The concept reflects one of Toyota’s visions for Automated Mobility as a Service (Autono-MaaS) applications. It is a fully-automated, next generation battery electric vehicle (BEV) designed to be scalable and customizable for a range of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) businesses. What’s more, the e-Palette Concept demonstrates Toyota’s continued commitment to partnership and flexibility.
