Toyota has announced it will share its hybrid powertrain technology with rivals to boost revenue and improve emissions.
TOYOTA’S POWERTRAIN boss Toshiyuki Mizushima has said the Japanese car maker will begin working with its suppliers to ensure the low-emissions powertrain technology Toyota produces is available to other car makers.
“Toyota suppliers produce a lot of technology which can only be used by Toyota,” Mizushima, president of Toyota’s powertrain company, said. “We want to change that to a system where we develop technology with our suppliers at an earlier stage… so they can make that technology available to non-Toyota customers.”
“Until now, we couldn’t sell the same inverter used in Toyota’s previous hybrid system to other customers because it wouldn’t fit the motor, or the voltage was different,” said Yoshifumi Kato, executive director of engineering R&D at Denso Corp, Toyota’s biggest supplier.
“We can avoid this issue if suppliers can sell the entire system.”
“If we take a component developed with Toyota and sell a million to Toyota and another million to other customers, it would double our return on our development costs,” said Denso’s Kato.
Toyota has been noted for its closed-door policy on sharing the technology it develops with its suppliers. But that looks about to change as Toyota seems to think there’s a gap in the market for its hybrid technology.
Question: Despite Toyota’s seemingly sensible decision, do you think other car makers are interested in Toyota’s low-emissions powertrain technology?
Good move Toyota.