Hyperdrive

Toyota Adding $2.8 Billion to Self-Driving Software Outlays

  • Japanese giant seeks programming edge for autonomous driving
  • Carmaker has almost $4 billion budget to improve tech chops
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
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Toyota Motor Corp. plans to spend $2.8 billion to make sure its system for writing self-driving vehicle software will be just as efficient as the factories that build its cars.

The company needs faster and more reliable methods for writing software because self-driving cars require “millions and millions” of lines of computer code, according to James Kuffner, who’ll lead the new effort. That compares with tens of thousands of lines of code in cars just a generation ago.