Toyota Motor Corp. is spending $1 billion to form a research institute focused on the artificial intelligence and robotics technology it needs to make cars that can overcome driver errors and reduce traffic fatalities.

Toyota Research Institute Inc. will pitch in on the safety systems the automaker is developing to curtail car accidents that kill 1.25 million people per year worldwide. The company will also work toward making it easier for elderly drivers to hang onto their keys in aging countries including Japan and the U.S., Toyota’s biggest markets.

Getting an edge in this research would set Toyota apart from its Japanese peers, which have been pursuing fully autonomous cars under more conservative time frames than Google Inc. or Tesla Motors Inc. With Toyota President and racing enthusiast Akio Toyoda by his side, the newly-formed R&D unit’s chief executive said competing to put autonomous cars on the road will be an endurance contest, rather than a sprint.

“It’s possible at the beginning of a car race that you may not be in the best position,” said Gill Pratt, CEO of the institute and Toyota’s executive technical adviser. “It may be that other drivers are saying a whole lot about what their position is, and everyone may expect that a particular car will win. But of course, if the race is very long, who knows who will win? We’re going to work extremely hard.”

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