Toyota Motor Corp has reduce its stake in Uber Technologies Inc by about half, after the ride-hailing firm divested the autonomous driving unit on the heart of their collaboration.
“The development of vehicles related to automated driving was one of the main objectives of Toyota’s investment,” Toyota spokesperson Shiori Hashimoto stated in a press release, including that the corporate nonetheless goals to keep up their alliance.
The world’s largest automobile maker by quantity held 5.13 million shares of Uber as of March 31, down from the ten.25 million shares it owned a yr earlier, Toyota revealed in a regulatory submitting on Thursday.
The Japanese automaker valued its present stake in Uber at 22.4 billion yen ($165.51 million).
“Toyota continues to hold shares as part of our goal to maintain our collaboration and good relationship with Uber,” Hashimoto stated.
Toyota had invested $500 million in Uber in 2018 to collectively work on creating self-driving automobiles, as each firms sought to catch as much as rivals within the hotly aggressive autonomous driving enterprise.
In 2020, nevertheless, Uber offered its autonomous driving unit to Aurora Innovation in a bid to realize its profitability targets.
In March Aurora stated it and Toyota had began testing autonomous ride-hailing fleet in Texas, with two security operators and no passenger on board. Read full story.
Uber was not instantly accessible for remark.
Source: www.autonews.com