Toyota, Suzuki, 3 other carmakers tie up to standardise connected car tech

Five Japanese carmakers - Toyota, Suzuki, Subaru, Daihatsu and Mazda have jointly agreed to develop technical specifications for next-generation vehicle communications devices. They aim to standardise and promote connected services for cars.

The auto industry is seeing rapid advancements in the connected services domain in terms of communication devices and data aspects of technology and business including cloud services, IoT, big data, and AI. Various carmakers are independently developing their in-house vehicle communications devices. In fact, each company is taking a different approach in providing the same connected services such as remote operation functions.

By positioning the development of vehicle communications devices, which are core functions of the connected car, as a cooperative domain, the Japanese consortium says that it can provide safer and more convenient connected services to customers as early as possible.

By making the development of applications and services as an in-house domain, the group will be able to achieve greater efficiency and accelerate the development of vehicle communications devices. Each company will be able to focus more on the development of applications and services on this common infrastructure.

Join cooperation will make it possible to reduce the development burdens of each participating company and to simplify system operation and version upgrades that include additional new functions, thereby optimizing resources such as facilities and personnel.

Suzuki, Subaru, Daihatsu, and Mazda, while incorporating their own technologies into the base vehicle communications technologies developed by Toyota, will together build systems for next-generation connected cars using common connection specifications.

Further, the consortium says that it is open to explore similar collaboration with other like-minded partners regarding thein terms of joint development of connected car tech. The companies say that they will also continue their efforts to develop services that enrich the lives of people and solve social problems.