Toyota has an existing think tank, research organization and long-term development wing courtesy of Toyota Research Institute (TRI), but now it’s expanding TRI with a new sub-company of its own: Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development (TRI-AD), which I have to assume was so named just so they could have the really cool acronym.
The new company will elevate TRI CTO James Kuffner to TRI-AD CEO, with TRI CEO Gil Pratt acting as Chairman of the Board for the new entity. Its focus will be specifically on advanced development of automated driving technology, whereas TRI’s mandate is more broad, and includes material science work towards advanced battery tech as well as robotics work, in addition to self-driving research.
TRI-AD will be aiming to staff up with as many as 1,000 employees, with a focus on both internal recruitment from the larger TMC group, as well as external hiring. The new company will be based in Tokyo, with exact office location TBD at the moment.
Toyota’s goals with TRI-AD are summarized by the company as follows:
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Create a smooth software pipeline from research-to-commercialization, leveraging data-handling capabilities.
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Strengthen coordination with TRI and efficiently link research results to product development.
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Strengthen the collaboration within the Toyota Group in the domains of research and advanced development.
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Recruit and employ top-level engineers globally, while cultivating and coordinating the strong talent within the Toyota Group.
It sounds like the main job of the company will be linking up the lofty, essentially academic-style research of the existing TRI organization with the front-line engineering efforts of the people putting automated driving technology to work in actual Toyota and grow vehicles. In the still relatively nascent but also fast-paced world of autonomous driving, having an organization in place with one foot in R&D and another planted firmly in practical execution seems like a wise decision.
