When athletes and organizers descend on Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic Games they'll be ferried around in autonomous cars, while torch relay runners will be accompanied by vehicles equipped with artificial intelligence. Robots will ferry javelins and hammers.
All told, Toyota Motor Corp. will provide 3,700 vehicles — including dozens of self-driving cars, about 500 fuel-cell vehicles and 850 battery-electric cars — to the international sports competition.
As a top sponsor of the Tokyo Olympics and an automaker facing an uncertain future with gasoline-powered engines set to fade away, Toyota is doing everything it can to market its transition into an eventual provider of on-demand transportation for consumers and businesses, instead of being merely an industrial manufacturer.