Toyota Invests in Artificial Intelligence for Cheaper Batteries, Electric Cars and Fuel Cells
Carmaker Toyota is pursuing advanced technology in pursuit of electric vehicle battery cost cuts.
The Japanese manufacturer recently announced it would be using artificial intelligence (AI) to help in the design and production of electric cars and fuel cells.
The move follow’s Tesla’s acquisition of Grohmann Engineering last year, which gave Elon Musk’s firm access to automation technology that could cut manufacturing costs.
Toyota’s AI-based approach, being led by the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) with offices in Palo Alto, CA, Ann Arbor, MI, and Cambridge, MA, is more focused on primary research.
“In materials problems in general you have many variables you can control — not only in the fundamental compounds that you select but also how you structure and manufacture the material,” said Eric Krotkov, chief science officer at TRI.
“All these choices impact ultimate performance. We aim to use AI to guide researchers through the infinite numbers of possibilities and to optimize for performance in a complex high-dimensional space.”
The TRI work, which involves a $35 million investment over the next four years, will focus on rechargeable batteries, fuel cell catalysts and functional polymers. “These are challenging and high risk, high reward applications,” Krotkov said.
TRI has launched a series of partnerships to develop the research. The partners were selected from an open request-for-proposals process and scientific review, said Krotkov.
Initial partners include Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the State University of New York at Buffalo, the University of Connecticut and the U.K.-based materials science company Ilika.
TRI is also in ongoing discussions with additional research partners, according to a press note. “We aim to have a collaborative program with different teams bringing different strengths,” Krotkov noted.
At least one of the existing partners already has experience in using AI for battery research.
