To me, it looks as if Toyota is hedging their bets. Toyota has made public statements about their view of autonomous vehicle research. Their publicly stated belief is that active safety is their focus. Things like collision avoidance, and mitigation.

On the other hand, Waymo has been at it for about 15 years. The Toyota people are smart enough to know they can't catch up in full autonomy within the next two or three product generations of vehicles.

For their part, Waymo is looking for more vehicle platforms.