Toyota Partners With China's Momenta To Commercialize HD Maps For Self-Driving Vehicles

Toyota Motor Corporation TM has partnered with Beijing-based artificial intelligence startup Momenta to commercialize its high definition road map for automated vehicles, the Nikkei Asian Review reported Wednesday.

What Happened

"With this joint development, both companies aim to promote the commercialization of Toyota's automated mapping platform in the China market to better serve Chinese customers," Momenta said in a statement, according to the Nikkei.

Toyota Research Institute has been developing the "Automated Mapping Platform" or AMP for self-driving vehicles to improve navigation accuracy.

The Japanese automaker on Tuesday announced a separate partnership with Tokyo-based Dynamic Map Platform Co. Ltd., where the two will work on a "proof of concept" on implementing the technologies of the two companies in automated vehicles.

"The conventional approach detects lane-level changes through on-site surveys using expensive survey vehicles and typically based on planned road construction notices," Toyota said in a statement.

"In this PoC, TRI-AD's image recognition technology automatically detects changes based on image data collected by commonly available cameras."

The HD maps are a lower-cost method of determining navigation compared to the laser-based radar systems that Alphabet Inc. GOOGL GOOGL subsidiary Waymo and startup Pony.ai use, the Nikkei noted.

Momenta said that the company intends to pursue "both mass-production passenger vehicles and full autonomy for a mobility service vehicle," and the Toyota partnership with play an "important role" in that direction.

The startup was founded in 2016 by former Microsoft Corporation MSFT researcher Cao Xudong.

Price Action

Toyota's stock closed 9.58% higher at $118.89 in New York on Tuesday. The shares traded 4.51% higher at $62.06 at press time in Tokyo.