Toyota steers millions into U. Michigan AI project

Toyota has pledged $22 million to a four year artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous driving project led by the University of Michigan.

The investment will be spread throughout the four years and go towards all sorts of tech projects, including stair climbing wheelchairs, cameras for blind people, and autonomous cars.

“Toyota has long enjoyed an excellent working relationship with the University of Michigan, and we are excited to expand our collective efforts to address complex mobility challenges through artificial intelligence,” said Toyota Research Institute CEO Gill Pratt.

“We look forward to collaborating with U-M’s research faculty and students to develop new intelligent technologies that will help drivers travel more safely, securely and efficiently. We will also focus on expanding the benefit of mobility technology to in-home support of older persons and those with special needs,” she added.

Earlier this year, Toyota announced a $1 billion research facility for autonomous vehicles in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That is also in collaboration with the University of Michigan.

This is Toyota’s third self-driving campus

The facility is Toyota’s third in the U.S., after Palo Alto, CA and Cambridge, MA. All three are connected to the local university, in Palo Alto that’s Stanford, in Cambridge its MIT.

Toyota clearly sees America’s universities as a way to advance its self-driving technology without being too active in the industry. Others, like General Motors, have followed a similar model.

The Japanese automaker still seems hesitant to make a large play in the autonomous market, despite the investments in research centers. In 2014, it said it had no interest in autonomous cars, and since then has pushed testing to its luxury car brand Lexus and research to universities.

That might be a smart strategy to avoid public scrutiny and lower the costs. The tech centers will retain their value in a few years, while General Motors $1 billion acquisition of Cruise Automation or Tesla’s large expenditures on AutoPilot will not have any value if they don’t win.

Google not embarrassed to self-drive Fiat Chrysler minivan

Google has announced a partnership with Fiat Chrysler, which will double the size of the company’s autonomous fleet to 200 cars.

Fiat will provide 100 Chrysler Pacifica vans to Google. The vans will be fitted with all of Google’s autonomous technology and will join the other 100 cars in California for road testing.

The two companies claim this is the “most advanced” partnership between Silicon Valley and a traditional automotive company.

“The opportunity to work closely with Fiat engineers will accelerate our efforts to develop a fully self-driving car that will make our roads safer,” said John Krafcik, Google’s head of self-driving cars.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) CEO Sergio Marchionne has been a bit of a pessimist towards Silicon Valley in the past, calling them “disruptive interlopers” and questioning the capability of a company like Google to make a good car.

Google unlikely to get into car-making

We doubt Google will build its own vehicles when driverless cars are permitted on the roads, instead working with a small selection of automotive companies. Fiat is in a powerful position to be the primary manufacturer of autonomous cars that use Google’s technology.

“FCA will design the minivans so it’s easy for us to install our self-driving systems, including the computers that hold our self-driving software and the sensors that enable our software to see what’s on the road around the vehicle,” said Google’s self-driving team.

Toyota was the first automotive company to partner with Google, providing 70 Lexus cars in 2014, but this sounds like a much closer partnership between the two companies.

We’re bound to see more partnerships like this in the next few years, as automotive manufacturers choose between Google’s established self-driving platform and their own in-house system. Ford, General Motors, and Toyota have all been linked in the past to Google, but all three have yet to make any official collaboration announcements.