Toyota chief articulates mobility vision at CES 2018

Akio Toyoda’s address at CES 2018 in Las Vegas is interesting because it reflects his vision as President of Toyota Motor Corporation.

“It’s my goal to transition Toyota from an automobile company to a mobility company, and the possibilities of what we can build, in my mind, are endless,” he said in his speech at the US Consumer Electronics Show.

Toyoda added that he was determined to create new ways to move and connect the company’s customers across the country, across town, or “just across the room.” As he put it, technology is changing quickly and the race is on.

“Our competitors no longer just make cars,” Toyoda said. “Companies like Google, Apple, and even Facebook are what I think about at night because after all, we didn’t start out by making cars either.”

After all, he explained, not many people were aware that Toyota actually began as a company that built weaving looms and not cars. It was his grandfather, Kiichiro Toyoda, who decided move from building looms to manufacturing cars.

From Toyoda’s point of view, it is the platform that will be the backbone for mobility as a service for autonomy, car sharing and for any number of services that “we want to make possible.”

This is why, in partnership with Microsoft, it launched a standalone company in the US two years ago called Toyota Connected, which would leverage the power of big data for millions of its connected customers around the world.

“With Toyota Connected, we hope to become just as well-known for the Mobility Services Platform we have developed to manage large fleets of vehicles and all kinds of connected services,” said Toyoda.

His company, he added, would want the car to be a seamless extension of the phone and computer, a kind of personal assistant on wheels, that can anticipate needs through predictive artificial intelligence. In the future, continued Toyoda, much of mobility on demand, or mobility as a service will be powered by autonomy which, in turn, is supported by vehicle electrification.

Today, Toyota offers 37 electrified vehicle models in over 90 countries. “By the early 2020s, we will have more than 10 battery electric vehicles available worldwide, and by 2025, every model in the Lexus and Toyota line up will either be electric, or will have an electrified option,” said Toyoda.

He also spoke of the company’s new global initiative, ‘Start Your Impossible’, which was unveiled at the recent Tokyo Motor Show. This, added Toyota, had become something of a mission statement for him personally because he hated being told it “can’t be done.”

“It’s why I decided to train to become a master driver at Nürburgring at the ripe old age of 51, because I knew it would help me make our cars better even though many people told me I was crazy, including my father!” said Toyoda.

And while he believed in healthy competition, he insisted that he was less concerned about getting there first as “I am about getting it right, and about finding ways to use technology to benefit as many as possible.”

It is clear from this speech that Toyoda is keen on taking his company to the next level in the mobility roadmap. This also puts in context why alliances with Suzuki and Mazda for electrification become important in the mid to long-term.

Beyond this, Toyoda knows that the road ahead is going to be completely different, which means thinking out-of-the-box is important in order to stay relevant.

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