Oct 15 2016

Toyota Motor Corp. sees the technological revolution shaking up the auto industry as a serious enough threat to its survival that the world’s most valuable carmaker will consider partnering with one of its fiercest Japanese rivals

In exploring collaboration between Toyota and Suzuki Motor Corp., chieftains Akio Toyoda and Osamu Suzuki seek to tie together companies with a history of failed alliances. The two would overlook Toyota’s short-lived partnership with Tesla Motors Inc. and Suzuki’s acrimonious breakup with Volkswagen AG due to the daunting financial demands of keeping up with technological advances in areas such as electrification and autonomous driving

Toyota is not really good at creating alliances” and in the past was “fixated on the need to be able to cover all of our own bases,” Toyoda, 60, said at a press conference Wednesday in Tokyo. “However, as the surrounding environment is changing drastically, we need to have capability to respond to changes in order to survive