Leading tyre manufacturer Bridgestone has announced an investment in Japanese autonomous driving startup Tier IV, a leading developer of Autoware, an open-source software project for autonomous driving. Bridgestone’s investment is part of an $87 million Series B funding round secured by Tier IV that also included existing shareholders Sompo Holdings and Yamaha Motor. Bridgestone says it will work with Tier IV to contribute to the deployment of autonomous driving technology in an effort to speed up development of advanced tyre technologies and next-generation mobility solutions.
Public & Private Funding
Bridgestone’s investment coincided with Tier IV’s announcement that it had received a grant from the Green Innovation Fund Projects (GI Fund), solicited by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) for research and development of autonomous driving platforms. Japan’s government established the $15 billion GI Fund to work toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, Tier IV says. Through the Green Autonomous Driving project, Tier IV hopes to achieve 100 times higher energy efficiency than current autonomous vehicles. Tier IV says collaborating with Bridgestone will accelerate testing, verification, and validation efforts.
The Proving Ground
Bridgestone says much of the collaborative work will occur at the new Bridgestone Innovation Park in Tokyo. The Park’s B-Mobility demonstration and testing facility is a “proving ground” that can be leveraged to “quickly experience and evaluate the performance and potential of prototype mobility technologies and products.”
Source: Bridgestone