Toyota, Subaru team up to develop electric vehicles, driverless cars
Toyota and Subaru announced that they will work together to build electric vehicles, develop driverless cars and acquire even more stock in the others’ company.
The automakers began their partnership in 2005, according to a press release from the companies on Friday.
That partnership resulted in the development of the Toyota 86 and Subaru BRZ sports cars. This expanded relationship will see the companies evolve newer generations of those two cars and will bring them together to develop technology for autonomous vehicles.
A man walks past a Toyota Motor Corp logo at the company's showroom in Tokyo, Japan June 14, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai (Reuters)
The companies will also work together on battery electric vehicles (BEV), which will use Subaru’s all-wheel-drive technology and Toyota’s “vehicle electrification technologies,” the announcement said.
This focus is in order to “respond to the new domains of CASE (connected, autonomous/automated, shared, electric)” vehicles.
FILE - In this Aug. 31, 2011, file photo, a Subaru logo is displayed on a sign at a dealer's lot, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
According to USA Today, Toyota’s hybrid technology was already being used in one version of the Subaru Crosstrek.
The partnership announcement also laid out the plans for how both companies will acquire shares of the other.
Toyota will increase its shares of Subaru to 20 percent while Subaru will acquire an equivalent amount “for Toyota to acquire Subaru shares,” the announcement said.
“Our companies, both of which have long pursued driving enjoyment, now want to pursue the possibilities of making ever-better cars suitable for the CASE era by bringing together our strengths and by further deepening our relationship," Toyota President Akio Toyoda said in a statement.
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Subaru President Tomomi Nakamura added in a statement: “By taking our relationship one step further and mutually honing our technologies, we will strengthen our ability to respond to CASE and other demands, and will accelerate our shared aspirations for making ever-better cars."