Toyota and Mazda join forces on shared infotainment platform

Toyota and Mazda have joined forces to develop a common next-generation infotainment platform for future models.

Japanese news agency Nikkei reports Toyota did the grunt work on the new infotainment system before bringing in Mazda to help streamline the platform.

It is believed the jointly developed system will debut in the next-gen 2018 Toyota Camry, due to arrive in Australia next year, followed by all-new Mazda 3 later in the year.

While the system was developed in conjunction by Toyota and Mazda, the physical infotainment units will appear different in their respective vehicles, with room for individual features and apps.

However, cars from both companies will be able to take advantage of system’s Wi-Fi hotspot feature, which allows for over the air updates for the car, and a wide-array of apps.

The yet to be named system will take charge of in car navigations, music and video, with Toyota planning to make it standard on all cars sold in the US and China by 2020.

A slight hitch, is the fact the new system doesn’t support Android Auto or Apple CarPlay – at least not yet, though this could change as development continues.

The co-developed system is Linux-based – a type of computer operating system which is open-source, and originally intended for desktop computers. It is now utilised in a number of different computing situations.

Japanese mobile phone carrier KDDI is also involved in the project, maintaining the network for the in car Wi-Fi system.