Toyota making new taxi for Japan, ties up with hire-taxi body

Toyota is creating a next-generation taxi for the Japanese market and it has formed a partnership with the country’s hire-taxi federation to have a look at uses for new technology, the company stated on Friday.

The partnership comes as Japan’s most significant automaker invests heavily in automated driving, vehicle sharing and other linked movement technologies, while Japan’s powerful taxi market has actually opposed efforts by ride-hailing app Uber to expand into the nation.

Toyota’s brand-new taxi, which is being built in cooperation with the Japan Federation of Hire-Taxi Associations, will focus on being easily accessible to the senior, households with kids and foreign tourists. It would appear in 2017, it stated.

The automaker states that it would work together with the association, which represents over 15,000 taxi operators nationwide, to use taxis in Tokyo to gather and examine information on roadway traffic, and use the lead to innovations consisting of automated driving.

Toyota produces most of the nation’s taxis. It has stated it prepares to market an automobile which can drive autonomously on highways by 2020.

The tie-up is the most current in a series of new collaborations Toyota has tattooed in the past year, including with Uber, while the automaker has likewise established a $1 billion artificial intelligence research institute.