Toyota is taking some solid steps towards expanding its reach into the space of autonomous and electric vehicle manufacturing. Through its Toyota Research Institute, the company is planning its future out in with the field of autonomous tech.
In alliance with MIT’s Media Lab, Toyota has released the name of certain partners who excel in different areas of blockchain technology, in order to explore the various possibilities of how the technology may be applied to the car industry.
Toyota has rolled out various plans and projects which aim at addressing the importance of software in comforting the life’s of regular people with autonomous technologies. This means monitoring the safety and security of individual vehicles, cutting down frauds, and providing right ways of dealing with cars.
Chris Ballinger, director of mobility services and chief financial officer at Toyota’s research institute, said;
Hundreds of billions of miles of human driving data may be needed to develop safe and reliable autonomous vehicles. Blockchains and distributed ledgers may enable pooling data from vehicle owners, fleet managers, and manufacturers to shorten the time for reaching this goal, thereby bringing forward the safety, efficiency and convenience benefits of autonomous driving technology.
The research is initially inclined on finding a way to share data of every ride that an autonomous vehicle takes, create tools that would make the ride sharing experiences easier for customers, and creating new insurance products which would aid the customers willing to take them.
Neha Narula, Director, Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab mentioned in a statement:
I’m excited Toyota is spearheading this initiative that uses blockchain technology to create an open platform where users can control their driving data. Our hope is that other industry stakeholders will join this effort to bring safe and reliable autonomous vehicles one step closer to reality.
And it is not just MIT who is associated with Toyota in this project, but some other big-small companies and startups are linked with the project as well.
Following is the list of TRIs partners:
- BigchainDB, based in Berlin is is building the data exchange for sharing driving and autonomous vehicle testing data
- Oaken Innovations, from Dallas and Toronto, is working on an application for P2P car sharing, vehicle access and payments with a newly created mobility token
- Commuterz, an Israeli startup, which is working with TRI on a P2P carpooling solution
- Gem, from Los Angeles, which is coordinating with Toyota Insurance Management Solutions (TIMS) and Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Services on the insurance platforms
