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Toyota Plans Own System For In-Car Software

The move by Japan's top automaker is aimed at boosting efficiency and keeping an edge over competitors in key areas such as safety as automobiles become increasingly computerized and complexity drives up software development costs.

By Reuters
InformationWeek

March 29, 2007 06:51 AM



TOKYO, March 29 -- Toyota Motor Corp. plans to develop its own operating system for in-car software as information technology becomes the focus of global competition among major automakers, the Nikkei business daily said on Thursday.

The move by Japan's top automaker is aimed at boosting efficiency and keeping an edge over competitors in new key areas such as safety as automobiles become increasingly computerised and increased complexity drives up software development costs, the paper said.

Toyota has already set up an in-house team to lead the project and plans to develop a working version by around 2015, the Nikkei said.

A spokeswoman said the company could not comment on the report.

Group firms including Denso Corp. and Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd. are participating in the project, and the partners are exploring the possibility of creating a group company specialising in software development, it said.

Companies now develop software from scratch for each control function and vehicle model, driving up costs. Standard in-vehicle software, similar to the operating systems in personal computers, would vastly boost efficiency and speed up development.

Toyota is known in the industry for working especially closely with parts makers from the development stage to avoid relying too heavily on its suppliers for value-added gadgets that often determine a car's competitiveness.

The reported move could also help significantly slash costs as part of a new initiative, dubbed the VI (value innovation) project, under which Toyota aims to lump more parts and modules together, for example by reducing the number of the 60-some electronic control units found in most cars.

Sweet.

They should work with Apple would be a nicer OS for the car

OMG, I hate it! I hate when you have to turn on a huge, bright LCD to operate the god damn radio, or AC, or whatever. I think these LCDs should be limited to navi controls only.

OMG, I hate it! I hate when you have to turn on a huge, bright LCD to operate the god damn radio, or AC, or whatever. I think these LCDs should be limited to navi controls only.

I agree.

On very cold mornings, in our RX300, it would take about 10 minutes of interior warm up until the HVAC LCD was warm enough to actually function properly.

OMG, I hate it! I hate when you have to turn on a huge, bright LCD to operate the god damn radio, or AC, or whatever. I think these LCDs should be limited to navi controls only.

Agree. That's one of the reasons why I never spring for the Nav option.

Sweet.

They should work with Apple would be a nicer OS for the car

I swear I was going to say the exact same thing.

No one can beat Apple when it comes to user friendly and ultra intuitive user interface, and not to mention very good looking one too.

I swear I was going to say the exact same thing.

No one can beat Apple when it comes to user friendly and ultra intuitive user interface, and not to mention very good looking one too.

If not oh well just have to install a mac mini :p

Sounds pretty cool. :thumbup:

Ready by 2015?? Dont know how long it takes to create something like this, but with 8 years to make a working version it better be the best damn OS available.

It's insane for Toyota to do an OS from SCRATCH at this time. So many great embedded OSes out there which could be easily extended for Toyota's needs. To do it from scratch means working out MILLIONS of defects before it will be reliable.

It's insane for Toyota to do an OS from SCRATCH at this time. So many great embedded OSes out there which could be easily extended for Toyota's needs. To do it from scratch means working out MILLIONS of defects before it will be reliable.

very true, but the article did say it will take about 8 years till it hits the show room floor, that should be enough time to work out a lot of the bugs

Heh, I took it to mean not just the visual aspects of navigation and whatnot, but more of a common engine control system integrating everything and standardizing it throughout their lineup. I think they have to write software for eac vehicle right now integrating safety features and engine management. Imagine all the coding they probably had to do for the new LS and having all that energy going all into just one car. Hopefully, if this means cheaper electronic parts in the future, then so be it. Hopefully, they still allow people to be able to customise their cars (stereo) easily.

guys, this has NOTHING to do with navigation or HVAC controls :-).

It is behind-the-scenes ECU that controls stuff like engine managment, VSC, airbags, etc, etc, which are all separate now...

This is very low level, no graphical interface, something that has to be perfect and cant be using off the shelf general stuff...

OMG, I hate it! I hate when you have to turn on a huge, bright LCD to operate the god damn radio, or AC, or whatever. I think these LCDs should be limited to navi controls only.

Although this new Toyota system does not really have anything to do with now starting to operate other functions as in the past Lexus Nav still controls hvac and radio functions I agree that NAV screens should just be for NAV and not other car functions because if the screen goes out you are screwed. That is why I did not want a NAV system in my GS because if I want to install an aftermarket unit that will play DVDs, DVD-A, with a nicer screen I will have the problem of not being able to control certain functions in the car after I remove the OEM system. Also all the cars with NAV that I saw had all these ugly fingerprints and smudges on them which was a big turnoff.

Ideally I would like a "non-touchscreen" NAV system that is completely seperate from HVAC, radio, and other car functions and that is hidden when not in use that can be easily swaped out for a different/newer unit.