Toyota Corporation to Set Up Third Research Facility in Michigan

The auto-maker is challenging the auto-industry as it plans to be the largest producer of autonomous cars.

All the automobile companies along with Silicon Valley technology giants are all after the autonomous cars technology; presently the only auto-maker who has driverless cars figured out is Toyota Motors Corporation. Forbes reported the auto-maker is all set to open up a third research center in Michigan; mostly because the company has gained popularity in terms of high-tech auto development.

Earlier this week, the automobile organization made viral the news that under its Toyota Research Institute (TRI) Program, it has planned to open a third facility as a part of its autonomous riving projects. The other two research facilities that are working for the same purpose are situated in Palo Alto, California at Stanford University and the second one is at MIT in Massachusetts.

Toyota is aiming at becoming the largest autonomous driving technology in the industry while being the largest car seller in the world and in addition to that it also plans to increase its research facilities which will ultimately work in its favor in comparison to all the other auto-makers in the industry. The purpose for opening these research facilities in different localities is that it wants to tap the top talent from the top universities to come work for them. Furthermore, it also wants to test its self-driving cars in various weather and environment conditions because of which it has chosen these different places to conduct its research.

Presently, many companies including tech giant Google is testing its self-driving cars in warm and sunny weather condition, apart from a few exceptions, the autonomous cars have performed fairly well in such environment conditions however things get tough when these cars are made to drive in cold and freezing weather conditions as sensors and cameras in these cars find it difficult to function. The sole purpose for setting up a research facility in Michigan is because the weather there is slightly cold which makes it the perfect place to conduct tests in the specific location.

Forbes has further stated that Toyota’s Michigan research facilities is scheduled to start functioning in June and is likely to open with 50 people initially. Since the past few months, the automobile business has maintained its focus towards autonomous cars due to which they have set up this research program for the sole purpose to test and conduct research on the specific technology. The act of hiring all the top talent from Jaybridge Robotics in Cambridge shows how interested the company is to excel in this technology.

In addition to that the Wall Street Journal reported that Toyota all hired two autonomous driving researchers Ed Olson and Ryan Eustice to work with the company while last year it announced that it will invest as much as $1 billion to integrate its product with artificial intelligence for the development of the specific car. It plans to include Internet support in its cars because of which it collaborated with Windows maker and Microsoft, the software giant so that they can collectively work on Toyota Connected. This will be yet another revenue stream for the auto-maker.