Providing automated transport at Prime Polymer’s Anesaki Works factory

Yamaha Motor is pleased to announce today that the eve auto automated transport service provided by group company eve autonomy, Inc. has been introduced on a trial basis at the Anesaki Works plant of Prime Polymer Co.,Ltd. (headquartered Tokyo’s Minato Ward). This is the first case of a full-scale trial introduction of an eve auto operation outside of Yamaha Motor’s own factories.

eve auto is a new service for answering transport automation needs in closed-off environments—whether indoors or outdoors—and employs a newly developed electric vehicle. To date, Yamaha Motor has conducted trial operations at several of its own factories. eve autonomy plans to officially start providing its eve auto service from around this fall.

Prime Polymer was established in 2005 as part of a comprehensive tie-up, with investments made by Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. and Idemitsu Kosan Co.,Ltd. The company manufactures and sells polypropylene and polyethylene resins, and its products are widely used in automotive materials, packaging materials, industrial materials, and other fields. The company’s Anesaki Works plant is located at Idemitsu Kosan’s Chiba Complex and this trial introduction of eve auto has made it possible to automate the polypropylene resin sample transport process that was previously run on the premises 30 to 40 times a day, both during the day and at night.

Yamaha Motor designated several “New Businesses” and “Growth Businesses” as “Strategic Business Fields” in its new Medium-Term Management Plan (2022–2024) announced on February 10 this year. As part of managing its business portfolio, the Company will actively allocate management resources to these businesses in order to develop them into future core businesses. Low-speed automated vehicles fall under the plan’s “New Business Fields” and by establishing technologies for automated driving under specific conditions, Yamaha Motor aims to achieve laborsavings in logistics and commercialize the transport of goods.

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