The world's largest automaker is now the first car company to be named a top-tier Olympic sponsor.
Toyota has entered a sponsorship agreement with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to become part of The Olympic Partner program.
Toyota announced the deal during a ceremony in Tokyo, which was attended by a number of important people like IOC President Thomas Bach, IOC Marketing Commission Chairman Tsunekazu Takeda and Toyota President Akio Toyoda.
The contract is set to run through at least 2024 in the mobility category, which includes mobility services mobility solutions and vehicles, according to the automaker.
Here's what the deal means: the national and global activities will exclusively use vehicles made by the Japanese automaker. This makes sense since the 2020 summer games are scheduled to take place in Tokyo.
As part of the deal, Toyota will pay $835 million, according to Japanese media reports, though the automaker has not officially disclosed financial terms yet.
In order to become a main sponsor at the Tokyo Olympics, companies may have to spend around 15 billion yen ($123 million), according to a Kyodo News report from earlier this year.
Toyota will also become the third Japanese TOP sponsor.
Panasonic Corp. became a TOP sponsor in 1987 and tire maker Bridgestone Corp. became one in 2014.
What we don't know yet is what kind of Toyotas will be used to transport athletes to and from venues.
Toyota's hydrogen-powered Mirai should be a shoe in for the Olympics, alongside vehicles with autonomous driving technologies.
The Mirai is powered by hydrogen and emits nothing but water vapor from its tailpipe.
Toyoda revealed the assembly line that will make the first mass market fuel-cell vehicle last month, confirming that a team of 13 workers will assemble three cars per day manually without the use of conveyors.
The automaker expects to manufacture at least 700 units by the end of December and production will expand to 2,000 next year.
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