While all that sounds very tentative, it boils down to this: Waymo has the self-driving tech, and Toyota has the cars. Sometime down the line, the two companies might start selling Toyota-built cars with Waymo's autonomous driving technology to end users.

Toyota Motor Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo will explore collaboration on autonomous-driving technology, a potential boost to the Japanese carmaker’s efforts to catch up to the cutting-edge systems offered by major rivals.

Alphabet's ( NASDAQ: GOOG) ( NASDAQ: GOOGL) Waymo and Toyota Motor ( NYSE: TM) announced a preliminary deal to jointly explore developing a new autonomous vehicle platform and ways to enhance next-generation personally owned vehicles.