Toyota to invest $1 billion in Grab

Toyota Motor Corporation has announced that it has concluded an agreement with Grab Holdings Inc. to strengthen their existing partnership and expand their collaboration.

The partnership aims to expand mobility options for consumers throughout Southeast Asia, leveraging Toyota’s Mobility Services Platform. Part of that agreement is Toyota’s $1 billion U.S. dollars in Grab. One Toyota executive will be appointed to Grab’s board of directors and a dedicated Toyota team member will be seconded to Grab to as an executive officer. Toyota is considering more personnel exchanges in the future.

This is not the first time the two companies have collaborated. Since August 2017, Toyota and Grab have been developing connected services for Grab utilizing driving data collected by Toyota’s TransLog data-transmission driving recorder. The recorder, developed by Toyota for corporate fleets, has been installed in 100 Grab rental cars.

The data collected is stored on Toyota’s proprietary mobility services platform (MSPF), which serves as a form of information infrastructure for connected vehicles. Both companies have already begun collaboration in the field of connected vehicles by, for example, providing driving-data-based automotive insurance for Grab’s rental fleet in Singapore through local insurance companies.

With the new agreement, Toyota and Grab plan to shift into a full-scale implementation of services they have been developing to customers in Southeast Asia. The two companies will look for future collaborations aimed to achieve more-efficient ride-hailing businesses and for developing future mobility service solutions and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) vehicles.

source: Toyota