Toyota Research Institute expands its innovative operations
Toyota Research Institute expands its advanced development operations by launching two new operating companies.
In a recent announcement made by Toyota Research Institute — Advanced Development (TRI-AD) has reported its expansion plans to improve its operations.
The institute will form a holding company and two operating companies, which will come into effect in 2021. The holding company will be known as Woven Planet Holdings, Inc., and the two operating companies will be Woven CORE, Inc. — which will develop, implement and scale automated driving technologies — and Woven Alpha, Inc. — which will explore new business opportunities and incubate projects that go beyond today’s Toyota Motor Corporation.
“At the beginning of the year, Toyota announced ‘Woven City,’ a city that will serve as a living laboratory to help create an ever-better way of life centered on people and mobility for all,” commented Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor Corporation.
“Now, TRI-AD will be reorganised into three new companies, and, to make clearer what the companies should remember as their mission, the names of all three companies include Woven in their titles.
Established in 2018, TRI-AD provides fully integrated, production- quality software for automated driving. The company’s vision is ‘Mobility to Love, Safety to Live’, with a mission to create world-class technology and build safe mobility products.
Over the past two years TRI-AD has been striving to fulfill its vision and mission, and in order to effectively and efficiently move forward with its advanced development capabilities and create new value the Woven Planet Holdings group will focus on an agile software-first development process and Software Defined Architecture.
“When President Akio Toyoda announced that Toyota would become a mobility company, we realised that we would need strong software and strong hardware working together in order to achieve that,” commented James Kuffner, CEO of TRI-AD.
“We started TRI-AD in March 2018 as a joint venture between Toyota, Denso, and Aisin in order to unify and strengthen Toyota’s software capabilities, particularly for automated driving and advanced safety. Now we would like to take TRI-AD to the next stage and prepare our company for unparalleled growth, speed, and quality, which will lead the way into the future. It is my firm belief that this will all be possible under the new Woven Planet Holdings structure, which will consolidate our efforts and equip us with the necessary ingredients of people, technology, infrastructure, and corporate management to achieve our vision of ‘Mobility to Love, Safety to Live’,” added Kuffner.
“TRI-AD was launched two years ago to realise Toyota’s vision for the future. Based on today’s announcement, TRI-AD will take a new leading role as it takes the name Woven to further strengthen the idea of ‘for the happiness of others’. Reorganised under the name Woven, TRI-AD will endeavor to become the type of organisation that will allow those involved to step on the accelerator in helping realise a future where people can be happier,” concluded Toyoda.
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