Toyota will invest $500 million in ride-hailing firm Uber in a bid to work on churning out self-driving vehicles on a large scale, the car giant said on Tuesday. It seems as if the collaboration will take some time to reach Dubai, where buying awesome new and used Dubai cars with great deals is still an option!
The deal allegedly puts Uber at around a value of $72B and “aims at advancing and bringing to market autonomous ride-sharing as a mobility service at scale”, Toyota remarked in a statement.
The plan is to incorporate the technologies of both the companies to produce purpose-built Toyota vehicles and will also be implemented on Toyota’s ride-hailing platform.
“The deal is the first of its kind for Uber and signals our commitment to bringing world-class technologies to the Uber network,” said CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. It is also reported that hundreds of vehicles would be involved in the first phase.
The collaboration came as Uber is slowing down it’s effort to create autonomous vehicle technology solo. Uber reined in their self-driving programme back in March when a car crash killed a woman pushing a bicycle in the state of Arizona.
Last month, the company took precautionary measures and put the self-driving cars on manual mode with the “driver wheel on” at all times.
Uber is among those car companies that see an inevitable future and potential of self-driving cars.
“We’re excited that Toyota, the largest automobile manufacturer in the world, is making a strategic investment in Uber as part of a broader global partnership. Toyota vehicles are among the most popular cars on the Uber platform worldwide and we look forward to collaborating with Toyota in multiple ways going forward, starting with the expansion of our vehicle financing efforts,” a statement made by Emil Michael, Chief Business Officer of Uber.
Traders appeared to embrace the news with the stocks going 1.86 percent higher, outperforming the market which was about 0.64% higher. Toyota had already invested an undisclosed amount of cash through Toyota financial services.
The agreement also mentioned that the “mass-produced autonomous vehicles” would be produced by “third-party autonomous fleet operators”.
Up until this fine and dandy collaboration makes car riding a refreshing new experience, you can always check out CarSwitch.com for Dubai used cars, or sell car in Dubai as well if you feel like switching!
