Leading Partnerships to boost self-driving tech

With self-driving technology being seen as the technology of the future, more and more carmakers are teaming up to find the answers, especially with regards to autonomous mobility services. 

Exploring driverless opportunities

Waymo partners up with Groupe Renault SA and Nissan Motor to explore driverless mobility services for passengers and deliveries in France and Japan. The research will be focused on commercial, legal and regulatory issues related to transportation as a service in Japan and France. The partnership is supposed to bring Waymo’s autonomous technology to a global level, beyond the United States where it is a market leader in driverless technology – with more than 10 million miles tested on public US roads, and already a driverless ride sharing service in Phoenix. 

Japanese consortium

On the other side of the world, five Japanese carmakers are looking to participate in Monet Technologies, the joint venture of Toyota and SoftBank aiming to develop next-generation transportation services. Mazda Motor, Suzuki Motor, Subaru, Daihatsu Motor and Isuzu Motors will join the team, and collect and analyse data in order to provide mobility as a service. Together they will have a huge impact on the Japanese carmarket, with having provide 77% of all new vehicles sold in Japan last year. Only Nissan Motor and Mitsubishi Motors are not involved in the consortium. But as mentioned before, Nissan already joined Renault for similar purposes. 

Both partnerships show how the car industry is planning to take autonomous industry to the next level, yet none of them can do it alone.