Ridesharing has become an increasing trend, especially in urban areas where traffic jams really affects mobility. Toyota wants to find solutions to traffic jams and urban mobbility and announced a partnership with the famous ridesharing company Uber.
The two companies have entered into a memorandum of understanding to explore collaboration, starting with trials, in the world of ridesharing in countries where ridesharing is expanding, taking various factors into account such as regulations, business conditions, and customer needs. As part of the partnership, Toyota is making a strategic investment in Uber.
Through this agreement on the trials, Toyota and Uber will accelerate further talks in aiming to establish new services. The companies will create new leasing options in which car purchasers can lease their vehicles from Toyota Financial Services and cover their payments through earnings generated as Uber drivers. The leasing period will be flexible and based on driver needs.
Toyota and Uber also will explore collaboration in a variety of other areas, such as developing in-car apps that support Uber drivers, sharing knowledge and accelerating their respective research efforts, and establishing a special fleet program to sell Toyota and Lexus vehicles to Uber.
