Toyota invests $ 500 million in Uber. Taxi service valued at $ 72 billion

Image: Toyota

Earlier this week, the Japanese automaker announced a decision to invest $ 500 million in Uber. As part of the partnership, the companies plan to actively work on the development of technology for unmanned vehicles. In particular, plans have already been announced for the introduction of Uber unmanned technology into Toyota Sienna minivans - testing of this project on public roads has been scheduled for 2021.
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In their comments for the media, company representatives shared their ideas about the future of the automotive industry. In particular, they are convinced that in the future, car ownership will no longer be so popular, instead people will use “mobility as a service”.

This understanding encourages auto giants to enter into partnerships with technology companies, since developing unmanned projects from scratch is very expensive even for them, CNN analysts write .

A new round of investment - not the first example of cooperation between Toyota and Uber. So in January of this year, during the International Consumer Electronics Show, companies announced an e-Palette - a jointly developed concept of an autonomous car that can be used to solve problems from delivering pizza to transporting passengers.

Toyota believes in the prospects of the program for the development of Uber unmanned vehicles, despite the fact that recently it has clearly stalled and experienced problems. So the company turned off work in Arizona in May, after a fatal crash involving a drone. Only recently, Uber drones have returned to the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In addition, the company was forced to pay compensation to Google - the corporation filed a lawsuit in court, claiming that Uber had used its own practices, which had been stolen by a former employee.

Nevertheless, the new round of investment confirmed Uber's status as one of the most expensive non-public companies in the world - according to journalists, its valuation was $ 72 billion, which is significantly higher than the previous maximum estimate of $ 62 billion.

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