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In 2018, Toyota invested $500 million in Uber to jointly develop self-driving cars.
In 2020, Uber sold its self-driving unit to Aurora Innovation in a bid to achieve profitability goals.
Without that unit, Toyota is no longer interested. He only has about $165 million invested in Uber.
In 2018, the Japanese automaker Toyota and the chauffeur-driven car rental company Uber reached an agreement to carry out a joint autonomous car project.
The auto giant invested $500 million in Uber, with which at that time the value of this emerging company reached US$ 72 billion.
Toyota had already bought a small stake in Uber before, in 2016, but with the repowering of the alliance in 2018, the Japanese tried to reduce its disadvantage with respect to the competition.
The leader was Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, which with the American automaker General Motors led the market for autonomous vehicles.
But the scenario seems to have changed in the industry.
This Thursday, June 23, it was known that Toyota Motor Corp cut its stake in Uber Technologies in half after the transportation services giant got rid of its self-driving unit.
That is, when Uber got out of that business, Toyota was no longer interested in Uber’s plans. At least in the same proportion as before.
“The development of vehicles related to automated driving was one of the main objectives of Toyota’s investment in Uber,” Toyota said in a statement signed by Shiori Hashimoto, press officer for the Japanese group.
Likewise, he assured that it will not cut definitive ties with Uber.
Toyota moves away from Uber
As of the end of 2021, the largest automaker by number of units held 10.2 million Uber shares.
Three months later, on March 31, only 5.1 million.
The data is from a presentation to the regulatory bodies that Toyota made this Thursday in Tokyo and that publishes Reuters.
Toyota now values its stake in Uber at 22.45 billion yen, about $165 million. Very far from the 500 million invested in 2018.
In 2020, Uber sold its self-driving unit to Aurora Innovation with the idea of achieve profitability amid the coronavirus crisis.
“We continue to hold some shares of Uber as part of our goal of maintaining partnerships with the company,” Hashimoto explained.
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