A Japanese company that once revolutionized the auto industry by inventing electric power steering now finds itself on the wrong side of the latest technology innovation: driverless cars.
Jtekt Corp.'s innovation almost three decades ago outperformed the traditional hydraulic technology and allowed the company to become one of the biggest suppliers to Toyota Motor Corp. and other carmakers. It's now made more than 100 million of the units and claims a quarter of the global market.
Yet Tetsuo Agata, president of the Osaka-based company, is afraid that if his company doesn't come up with a product for cars with no steering wheel it could end up supplying no one.