Self Driving Toyota e-Palette


Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) today announced an operations management system to support the providing of services that will enable practical use of the e-Palette, a battery-electric vehicle for autonomous mobility as a service (Autono-MaaS) applications*1 that will realize future mobility services. In collaboration with a range of partners, it is also planning to operate the vehicles in Woven City, a fully connected prototype city, while targeting commercial use in multiple areas and regions in the early 2020s.

When announcing his goal to transition Toyota to a mobility company at the January 2018 CES, President Akio Toyoda also announced the e-Palette as a symbol of mobility that goes beyond cars to provide customers services and new value. The e-Palette, with automated driving functions, had its debut at last year’s Tokyo Motor Show. It will provide a loop-line bus transportation service for athletes and related staff in the Olympic and Paralympic villages at the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 that were postponed until July next year.

The spread of COVID-19 this past year has changed the way we live our lives, creating more diverse needs for mobility that include transportation that enables proper distancing between passengers, and a future of transportation of goods and services rather than people moving about. The shrinking and aging of society will also produce a range of mobility issues, so communities will increasingly need new mobility services, such as the e-Palette and other Autono-MaaS options, to address these issues.

To meet expectations such as these, Toyota aims to realize just-in-time mobility services that “go to where it is needed, when needed, and on time” and that provide the services and goods that are needed, when needed, and on time. To this end, it has developed an operations management system for e-Palette vehicles based on the Toyota Production System (TPS) ideology. This operations management system will be provided as new functions on Toyota’s Mobility Services Platform (MSPF)*2 and will consist of the Autonomous Mobility Management System (AMMS), for connecting to vehicles and the e-Palette Task Assignment Platform (e-TAP) for connecting to people. The system will reduce customer waiting times and alleviate congestion to ensures services provide safety, peace of mind and comfort.

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