Investing in two Chinese start-ups, Toyota’s autonomous driving layout “accelerates”丨One Observation

Text | Geng Huili

Pictures | Source network

Toyota has been very active recently.

On April 2, BYD Toyota Electric Vehicle Technology Co., Ltd., a pure electric research and development joint venture between Toyota and BYD, was officially established. The joint venture will "carry out design, research and development and other related businesses of pure electric vehicles and the platforms and parts used in the vehicles." This is regarded as an important step in Toyota's electrification layout and R&D localization in China.

But in fact, Toyota has recently accelerated its deployment in China not only in the research and development of electric vehicles, but also in terms of autonomous driving.

One after another, 2 "seed players" were selected

On March 18, Toyota announced a strategic cooperation with Momenta. Momenta will provide Toyota with high-end products based on camera vision technology. With refined maps and update services, both parties will jointly promote the commercial implementation of Toyota's Automated Map Platform (AMP) in China.

Momenta, headquartered in Suzhou, is a Chinese autonomous driving technology company founded in 2016. It is committed to building the "brain for autonomous driving". Its core technologies are environmental perception and high-precision maps based on deep learning. , driving decision algorithm.

According to media reports, Cao Xudong, the founder of Momenta, graduated from Tsinghua University. After graduation, he joined Microsoft Research Asia to engage in AI-related research. In 2015, he switched from Microsoft to the artificial intelligence startup SenseTime as an executive. R&D Director. In 2017, Momenta received investment led by NIO Capital and Daimler Group, and became famous in the industry.

Toyota’s explanation for why it chose Momenta is: “Momenta has vision-based perception technology and high-precision mapping technology... By cooperating with Momenta, Toyota can strengthen its autonomous capabilities in the Chinese market. Competitiveness in the driving field.”

Other sources say that Toyota and Momenta are not only cooperating in business, but may also invest in the latter, but this news has not been officially confirmed.

Although Toyota and Momenta, which are still in the early stages of cooperation, have chosen to keep a low profile on their cooperation, judging from the cooperation path between Toyota and another Chinese autonomous driving company, it is very possible to move from business cooperation to strategic investment. .

On February 26, Toyota invested US$400 million to lead Pony.ai as a strategic investor to expand cooperation between the two companies in the field of travel. In August last year, Toyota established a cooperation with Pony.ai, and the two parties joined forces to conduct autonomous driving pilot projects on public roads in China.

According to media reports, Pony.ai was founded at the end of 2016. The founders are Baidu chief architect Peng Jun and Baidu’s youngest T10 engineer Lou Tiancheng. After completing angel round investment in early 2017, Pony.ai completed Series A financing of US$112 million and Series A1 financing of US$102 million in 2018. In February this year, it completed a Series B financing of US$462 million. After this round of financing, Pony.ai became the startup with the highest financing amount in China's autonomous driving field.

Regarding the above-mentioned cooperation, Toyota China personnel told the media: "China has its own unique autonomous driving rules. We believe that cooperation with local Chinese companies is very necessary to develop autonomous driving technology suitable for China's road environment."

At the critical moment of technological upgrading, Toyota is investing more in China

Yijie believes that in addition to the official explanation, Toyota’s bet on two Chinese start-ups in the field of autonomous driving also reflects Toyota’s commitment to China. Two trends in the field of new technologies.

The first is to be open and make friends. As we all know, Toyota was not very enthusiastic about electric vehicles before, and its executives have publicly expressed their disapproval of the industrialization of electric vehicles. However, since announcing its strategy to accelerate electrification transformation last year, Toyota has made frequent moves in the field of electrification. Unlike in the past, which mainly relied on itself and Japanese suppliers to develop new technologies, Toyota has a very open attitude in the field of electrification and has a wide circle of friends. Leverage multiple resources.

In China, Toyota first established cooperation with BYD and CATL to implement the localization of battery and other supply chains; then it jointly established a joint venture with BYD to promote localization of electric vehicle research and development.

The same idea applies to the field of autonomous driving. Previously, Toyota has announced cooperation with Chinese technology giants such as Baidu, Didi, and Huawei in autonomous driving and mobile travel. Now they are paying attention to startups in the field of autonomous driving. Compared with giants such as Baidu and Huawei, startups are more innovative and have lower costs. Giants like Toyota can also have more dominance in cooperation.

Second, "China is the most important." Toyota President Akio Toyoda has repeatedly emphasized that "China is the most important." Nowadays, it is not only the Chinese market that is important, but also Toyota's new technology research and development. Begin to lean more toward China.

Previously, Japanese car companies such as Toyota were considered to be less active and relatively conservative in the field of autonomous driving than European and American companies such as Waymo, Mobileye, Ford, General Motors, Tesla, Bosch, and Apple. Previously, Toyota's largest investment in autonomous driving overseas was its cooperation with Uber in 2018, and it teamed up with SoftBank to invest US$1 billion in Uber.

China is already recognized as a hot spot for new technologies such as electrification and intelligence. In terms of quantity, as of the end of last year, there were more than 30 autonomous driving technology companies in China. In the 2019 autonomous driving road test report card recently released by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, five of the top 10 companies are from China. From the perspective of application scenarios and government and policy support, China also has advantages.

After the mass production of L2-level autonomous driving technology has become a problem, autonomous driving technology has reached a critical moment of upgrading. The difficulty of L3-level and above autonomous driving technology has greatly increased. Whoever takes the lead in upgrading to L3 will win. It is expected to achieve ultimate victory on the autonomous driving track.

In addition, like electrification and Internet of Vehicles, Chinese independent brand car companies have taken the lead in the application of autonomous driving, but multinational car giants such as Toyota are also stepping up their efforts to provide their joint venture car companies in China with Better technical support.

Recently, Toyota has bet on two Chinese startups, Pony.ai and Momenta, and has teamed up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to release the autonomous driving simulation platform "VISTA", indicating that Toyota is The field of autonomous driving must be accelerated, and China's strategic position as a "hot spot" for the development and application of new technologies is highly valued.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.