Toyota Doesn't Seem to Be All That Interested in Self-driving Autonopods
Speaking to the Automotive News World Congress on Tuesday, Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz said the automaker doesn’t plan on making fully autonomous vehicles any time soon.
“We don’t see a day coming soon when you’ll just hop in the back seat, open the newspaper and scan the headlines while the car drives you to work,” Lentz said. “Instead our focus is on building cars that can actually enhance a driver’s operation of the vehicle while helping to reduce or mitigate serious and fatal accidents.”
So, how does that “driver’s” Toyota Camry sound?
Lentz said the automaker’s plan was to provide systems that work together with drivers to improve safety — not just simply take over.
The plan would partially solve the liability question for automakers as cars become more self-sufficient. Clearly, the world’s largest automaker in 2015 wouldn’t be all that jazzed to take responsibility for millions of self-driving cars in the future, so it’s best to leave people in charge of their own destinies — insurance-wise, at least — for the near term.
It also shows that the world’s largest automaker is willing to go a little upstream — or at least fight the current — against the wave of self-driving tech rolling onto the market. It’s a seismic shift against convention, for now.
“We believe a car and driver can work together to increase both vehicle safety and the joy of driving,” Lentz said.
To that end, the company will be ramping up active systems on their cars such as Toyota’s Safety Sense Plus, which includes front- and rear-collision mitigation, lane-keep assistance and pedestrian safety systems.
[Image: Toyota]
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Toyota is not going upstream against self driving technology. What toyota has done is make an accurate public statement, without misusing important terms, while describing exactly what the entire industry is doing right now. They sell cars in every zip code, and for every driving purpose, they are an actual car company and the realism in this statement reflects that. We should be lauding them for their accuracy and fluff-less pr, not pretending they are refusing to develop something which is "right around the corner" for their competitors. No one wants you to let go of the steering wheel, no one is saying that their software will be capable of making all trips a passenger only affair. No one, at least, who isn't lying or over promising for some cheap pr out of gullible journalists.
“Instead our focus is on building cars that can actually enhance a driver’s operation of the vehicle while helping to reduce or mitigate serious and fatal accidents.” So adaptive cruise, autonomous braking, maybe a little avoidance, lane keep, blind spot monitoring, and definitely more self parking. What he really said was that Toyota plans to offer the exact same driver assistance package that everyone else is and will. This article was a pretty bad mis-read of his comments. A retraction might be in order.
Toyota doesn’t seem to be all that interested in self-driving autonopods because Toyota owners self-operate autonopods already.
Leave it to Nissan to have autonomous vehicles on the road by 2020. They have already mastered manufacturing reliable vehicles and cvt transmissions... Ford is the same with sync and turbos. All flash and no substance. They can't even make a 6speed auto transmission for the focus and fiesta