Toyota Research Institute — Advanced Development, Inc. (TRI-AD) announced this week that it will be expanding its operations. Effective January 2021, the company will launch a holding company and two operating companies. Woven CORE, Inc. and Woven Alpha, Inc. will operate under the new holding company Woven Planet Holdings, Inc.
The name “Woven” pays homage to the company’s roots, which “extend back to the automatic weaving loom invented by Sakichi Toyoda, the father of Toyota Motor Corporation’s founder, Kiichiro Toyoda,” current President Akio Toyoda said.
Toyoda also noted that the Toyota branding will be purposefully missing from these three new companies in an attempt to make them more open and collaborative. “Regardless, these companies will clear the path for the future of Toyota, as they carry on the legacy of ‘for the happiness of others’ that Toyota has so carefully woven into its own DNA,” Toyoda added.
Both operating companies are focused on exploring new driving technology and business opportunities with the industry. Woven CORE “will develop, implement and scale automated driving technologies,” while Woven Alpha “will explore new business opportunities and incubate innovative projects,” such as an Automated Mapping Platform (AMP), the company announced in its press release. The companies will focus on agile ‘software-first’ development processes as well as Software Defined Architecture.
The move further cements Toyota’s position as a mobility company. “When President Akio Toyoda announced that Toyota would become a mobility company, we realized that we would need strong software and strong hardware working together in order to achieve that,” James Kuffner, CEO of TRI-AD said. The company began strengthening its software capabilities in 2018, and this move is a way of consolidating efforts to this point.
