Self-driving cars to javelin cart: Toyota's robots set for Olympic debut
When
athletes and organisers descend on Tokyo for the 2020
Olympic Games,
they’ll be ferried around in autonomous cars, while torch relay
runners will be accompanied by AI-equipped cars. Robots will ferry
javelins and hammers.
All
told, Toyota Motor Corp will provide 3,700 vehicles, including dozens
of self-driving cars, about 500 fuel-cell vehicles and 850
battery-electric cars to the international sports competition.As a top sponsor of the Tokyo Olympics and an automaker facing a murky future when gasoline-powered engines will fade away, Toyota is doing everything it can to market its transition into an eventual provider of on-demand transportation for consumers and businesses, instead of being merely an industrial manufacturer.
“We want to use the Olympics and Paralympics that happen every two years as a milestone,” Masaaki Ito, general manager of Toyota’s Olympic and Paralympic Division, said in an interview. “2020 will be a good time to show our transformation into a mobility company.”
Toyota, Volkswagen AG and other carmakers face an uncertain future as new technologies and business models ripple through the $2.23 trillion global auto industry. Read More
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