June 23 (Reuters) – Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) has lower its stake in Uber Applied sciences Inc (UBER.N) by about half after the ride-hailing big divested the autonomous driving unit on the heart of their collaboration.
“The event of automobiles associated to automated driving was one of many predominant targets of Toyota’s funding,” Toyota spokesperson Shiori Hashimoto stated in a press release, including that the corporate nonetheless goals to take care of their alliance.
The world’s largest automobile maker by quantity held 5.13 million shares of Uber as of March 31, down from the ten.25 million shares it owned a yr earlier, Toyota revealed in a regulatory submitting on Thursday.
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The Japanese automaker valued its present stake in Uber at 22.4 billion yen ($165.51 million).
“Toyota continues to carry shares as a part of our aim to take care of our collaboration and good relationship with Uber,” Hashimoto stated.
Toyota had invested $500 million in Uber in 2018 to collectively work on creating self-driving automobiles, as each the businesses sought to catch as much as rivals within the hotly aggressive autonomous driving enterprise.
In 2020, nevertheless, Uber bought its autonomous driving unit to Aurora Innovation Inc (AUR.O) in a bid to realize its profitability targets.
Aurora stated in March that the corporate and Toyota had began testing autonomous ride-hailing fleet in Texas, with two security operators and no passenger on board. learn extra
Uber was not instantly accessible for remark.
($1 = 135.3400 yen)
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Reporting by Nathan Gomes in Bengaluru; Modifying by Devika Syamnath
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