Toyota and Amazon expand tie-up with eye on future car technology

New York/Detroit/Bangalore – Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday it has agreed with an affiliate of Amazon.com to expand their collaboration as part of the auto giant's efforts toward developing cloud-connected vehicles. Teaming up with Amazon Web Services Inc., Toyota aims to implement AWS's data analysis throughout the company and use it to help advance progress toward what the carmaker calls CASE, or Connected, Autonomous/Automated, Shared and Electric mobility technologies. Toyota said its Mobility Services Platform will enable it to process and analyze data that can be used to develop vehicle services from ride and car sharing to behavior-based insurance and maintenance notifications. Self-driving vehicles are among the envisioned next-generation products, and Toyota hopes to take advantage of its collaboration with AWS to develop connected vehicles ahead of the widespread use of 5G high-volume cellular networks. Toyota first signed a comprehensive deal with AWS, the cloud service arm of Amazon, in 2017 to analyze data collected from connected cars and apply it to vehicle design, development and maintenance, as well as car-sharing and other services.