Toyota Launching New User Experience Data Company

Vowing to “free their customers from the tyranny of technology,” Toyota is launching Toyota Connected, a new company dedicated to the user experience and the expansion of the automaker’s capabilities in the fields of data management and data-services development.

Toyota Connected will support consumer-, business- and government-facing initiatives and “leverage the power of data science through Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology to develop predictive, contextual, and intuitive services that help to humanize the driving experience while pushing the technology into the background,” the automaker says in a statement.

Services that may spring forth from Toyota Connected include smart telematics systems that learn driver behavior and preferences, connected-vehicle networks and use-based insurance pricing models “that respond to actual driving patterns,” Toyota says.

Toyota Connected will be based in Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.’s new hometown of Plano, TX, and consolidate previously announced or active initiatives by the automaker around data-center management, data analytics and data-driven services development. The automaker notes it will build on its existing relationship with Microsoft for connected-car solutions and elevated customer experiences, with Microsoft engineers and Toyota Connected staff working together in a new Plano facility.

Toyota Motor Corp.’s Shigeki Tomoyama, managing officer, is the chairman of Toyota Connected, while Zach Hicks, chief information officer-Toyota Motor North America, is CEO.

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