Skip to main content

Toyota and SoftBank to launch joint venture for mobility services in Japan

Toyota Motor and Softbank will launch a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) business in Japan by April 2019. Called Monet Technologies, the company will combine Toyota's mobility services platform and information infrastructure for connected vehicles with Softbank's Internet of Things platform. Initially, Monet intends to deploy an on-demand transportation service as well as corporate shuttles. By the second half of the 2020s, Monet says it will launch an autonomous MaaS fleet using Toyota’s battery-ele
October 15, 2018 Read time: 1 min
1686 Toyota Motor and Softbank will launch a Mobility as a Service (8356 MaaS) business in Japan by April 2019.


Called Monet Technologies, the company will combine Toyota's mobility services platform and information infrastructure for connected vehicles with Softbank's Internet of Things platform.

Initially, Monet intends to deploy an on-demand transportation service as well as corporate shuttles.

By the second half of the 2020s, Monet says it will launch an autonomous MaaS fleet using Toyota’s battery-electric vehicles, called e-Palette. The vehicles will deliver meals with food prepared inside the vehicle and provide a hospital shuttle service where medical examinations can be carried out onboard. These vehicles can also serve as mobile offices, the company says.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Willers brings Mobi shuttles to Singapore
    January 14, 2022
    Mobi uses Swat's AI technology, with optimal routing capability
  • Vehicle probe data aids emergency rescue vehicle routing
    June 20, 2012
    A new vehicle routeing initiative has arisen to help improve emergency response and relief following natural disasters in Japan. David Crawford reports Japan’s national ITS group ITS Japan and the country’s leading automotives have agreed on a new combined approach to the organisation of traffic management and emergency response in the wake of major natural disasters. A new, robust traffic information platform using probe data obtained from vehicles to support traffic flow will build on the shared experienc
  • Future EV owners can make money from the power grid
    May 17, 2012
    In what is being claimed as a landmark research report published by Ricardo and National Grid in the UK, the market potential is demonstrated for an electric plug-in vehicle fleet of the future to provide balancing services to the power grid on a commercial basis, returning value to vehicle owners while improving the carbon efficiency of grid operation.
  • Cars reinvented: huge new opportunities and dangers, says IDTechEx
    December 2, 2016
    The new IDTechEx report, Electric Car Technology and Forecasts 2017-2027 finds that the biggest change in cars for one hundred years is now starting. It is driven by totally new requirements and capabilities. They will cause huge new businesses to appear but some giants currently making cars and their parts will spectacularly go bankrupt. Cities will ban private cars but encourage cars as autonomous taxis and rental vehicles. Already 65 per cent of cars in China are bought by businesses. The Japanese wa