Cooperation between car manufacturers and IT companies is growing significantly, as in cases of joint investment projects between General Motors (GM) and SoftBank Group, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Waymo, and most recently in May this year, Toyota and Albert, a data analytics company. It is evident that with more budget allocated for technology development, the automotive industry has shifted from being “a manufacturer” to “a business partner.”

“GM Cruise Holdings,” the subsidiary of GM, responsible for autonomous driving technology, received funds of 2.25 billion dollars provided by SoftBank Group to develop “level 4” autonomous driving technology. GM expects that in 2019 the funds will accelerate such development.

FCA also collaborated with Waymo, an IT company that developed self-driving technology for the Google Group. It will supply 62,000 units of plug-in hybrid (PHV) minivan “Chrysler Pacifica” to Waymo and will negotiate with the company to develop self-driving technology for FCA.

In Japan, Toyota and Albert co-invested in May this year. Toyota is using Albert’s data analytics technology to reinforce the effectiveness of its self-driving technology.

In addition to such cooperation, the car manufacturers also implement the CASE (Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electric) principle. It is projected that 7 Japanese car manufacturers will be likely to invest more by 5.9% than the previous fiscal year, or at a total of 2.995 trillion yen.

To accelerate the development of such technology and to curb increasing costs, car manufacturers rapidly partner with IT companies. However, manufacturers are still the key provider of information regarding self-driving technology. Thus, IT companies, as business partners, play important roles in replenishing missing components required for optimized autonomous driving technology.