Japanese automakers Toyota Motor Corp, Isuzu Motors Ltd and Hino Motors Ltd yesterday said that they are setting up a commercial vehicles partnership to work together in electric, hydrogen, connected and autonomous driving technologies.
Under the deal, Toyota, Japan’s top automaker, and truckmaker Isuzu would each take a 4.6 percent stake in each other, the three companies said in a joint statement.
Hino is Toyota’s truck division and was Isuzu’s rival.
Photo: AP
The 39 million shares of Isuzu common stock that Toyota is acquiring are worth ￥42.8 billion (US$393.1 million).
Isuzu would acquire Toyota shares worth the same value, they said.
The three companies combined control 80 percent of the Japanese truck market.
Toyota, which makes the Camry sedan, Prius hybrid and Lexus luxury models, in 2018 sold off a 5.9 percent stake in Isuzu that it had bought in 2006. Earlier, Isuzu had a capital tie-up with US automaker General Motors Co.
Toyota, Isuzu and Hino aim to reduce emissions by building hydrogen infrastructure, and help solve the nation’s shortage of drivers by sharing information online and making deliveries more efficient.
“These days, it is hard to discern what is the correct way, and so we just have to give it a try, and then try again. It is through that process of repetition Toyota has achieved what it has,” Toyota president Akio Toyoda told a news conference that streamed online.
The three companies plan to develop electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, autonomous driving and electronic platforms for trucks, allowing them to cut costs), as well as promote ecological infrastructure and boost traffic safety.
“Companies must take up innovation if we hope to build a better society,” Isuzu president Masanori Katayama said.
Apart from their mutual stake holdings, Isuzu, Hino, and Toyota are jointly setting up a company, called Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies Corp in Tokyo, to promote their partnership and plan technology and services, the company presidents said at an online news conference.
Capitalized at ￥10 million, the new company would be 80 percent owned by Toyota, and 10 percent each by Isuzu and Hino.
“This new framework is a certain step toward helping solve society’s challenges,” Hino president Yoshio Shimo said.
A key project in the Toyota-Isuzu-Hino tie-up is introducing fuel cell trucks for a “hydrogen-based society” model being developed in Fukushima Prefecture, which was hit by the tsunami, earthquake and Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster of March 2011.
Toyoda said that every March since then, he has gone to northeastern Japan to commemorate the three disasters. This year, he visited Namie in Fukushima, which is still contaminated by radiation.
He said that he hopes the hydrogen society efforts will contribute to rebuilding the region.
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