TRI-AD INC. ANNOUNCES IT WILL EXPAND AND IMPROVE ITS OPERATIONS BY FORMING WOVEN PLANET HOLDINGS AND TWO NEW OPERATING COMPANIES, WOVEN CORE AND WOVEN ALPHA

Toyota Research Institute - Advanced Development, Inc. (“TRI-AD”) announced today that, effective January 2021, it will expand and improve its operations into a holding company and two operating companies. The holding company will be Woven Planet Holdings, Inc. (“Woven Planet Holdings”), and the two operating companies under it will be Woven CORE, Inc. (“Woven CORE”), which will develop, implement and scale automated driving technologies at its core, and Woven Alpha, Inc. (“Woven Alpha”), which will explore new business opportunities and incubate innovative projects that go beyond today’s Toyota Motor Corporation (“Toyota”), such as Woven City, Arene, and Automated Mapping Platform (“AMP”).

BACKGROUND

TRI-AD was established in March, 2018 in Tokyo, Japan, to provide fully-integrated, production-quality software for automated driving. TRI-AD’s vision is “Mobility to Love, Safety to Live,” and its mission is to create world-class technology and build safe mobility products for the world.

Over the past two years TRI-AD has made great progress in fulfilling its vision and mission, including the development of the latest advanced driving assist technology called, “Teammate” based on the “Mobility Teammate Concept.” TRI-AD is now embarking on the next phase of its evolution to deliver mobility (including the mobility of people, goods, and information) to everyone, and in order to achieve this it is necessary to expand and improve the company’s operations.

In order to effectively and efficiently forge ahead with TRI-AD’s advanced development capabilities and to continue creating new value through automated driving, safety technologies, mobility, and Woven City, the Woven Planet Holdings group will focus on a more agile “software-first” development process and Software Defined Architecture.

DETAILS

> Woven Planet Holdings will have the strategic decision-making function for the entire group, expand collaboration with partners, create new business opportunities, and provide corporate shared services to the operating companies.

> Woven CORE will continue to be responsible for the development of the Toyota Group’s automated driving technologies, and it will aim to further improve value by developing, implementing, and scaling its automated driving technologies in the market.

> Woven Alpha will explore new areas for business expansion and incubate new innovative projects such as Woven City, Arene, and AMP.

COMMENT FROM JAMES KUFFNER, CEO OF TRI-AD

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.

We started TRI-AD in March 2018 as a joint venture between Toyota, Denso, and Aisin in order to unify and strengthen Toyota’s software capabilities, particularly for automated driving and advanced safety. Two years later, we have made some great progress, hired some wonderful people, made some strategic partnerships, and received strong support from the Toyota Group, which has enhanced our ability to successfully develop cutting-edge software.

Now we would like to take TRI-AD to the next stage and prepare our company for unparalleled growth, speed, and quality, which will lead the way into the future. It is my firm belief that this will all be possible under the new Woven Planet Holdings structure, which will consolidate our efforts and equip us with the necessary ingredients of people, technology, infrastructure, and corporate management to achieve our vision of “Mobility to Love, Safety to Live.”

We will work hard with all of our stakeholders and partners to create tremendous new value, new technologies, and new products at a speed and scale that Toyota is famous for, and we will do it with software and services that will power future mobility.

 
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