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The
partnership comes as Japan's biggest automaker invests heavily
in automated driving, car sharing and other connected mobility
technologies, while Japan's powerful taxi industry has opposed
efforts by ride-hailing app Uber [UBER.UL] to expand into the
country.
Toyota's new taxi, which is being developed in cooperation with
the Japan Federation of Hire-Taxi Associations, will focus on
being accessible to the elderly, families with children and
foreign tourists. It would become available in 2017, it said.
The automaker said that it would collaborate with the
association, which represents more than 15,000 taxi operators
nationwide, to use taxis in Tokyo to collect and analyze
information on road traffic, and apply the results to
technologies including automated driving.
Toyota produces the majority of the country's taxis. It has said
it plans to market a vehicle which can drive autonomously on
highways by 2020.
The tie-up is the latest in a series of new partnerships Toyota
has inked in the past year, including with Uber, while the
company has also set up a $1 billion artificial intelligence
research institute.
(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman
and Gopakumar Warrier)
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