Toyota Testing Semi-Autonomous Lexus GS on Japanese Highways

Toyota City, Japan, October 6, 2015―Toyota has been testing a new automated driving test vehicle called Highway Teammate, with the aim of launching related products by around 2020.

Toyota’s “mobility team-mate concept” expects the auto and the driver to work as a team.

“We were afraid that by using the term ‘automated driving, ‘ people would misunderstand that humans are not involved at all”, said Masahiro Iwasaki, an engineer involved in the development of the technology.

Toyota wants to have self-driving cars on the road within five years.

With the advancement of sensors and telecommunications, such technology has been catching on, particularly as a safety measure in hard-to-execute manoeuvres such as parking. At that point, Toyota’s autonomous drive technology – like many other automakers – will not only be able to talk to other cars and communicate important information about each vehicle’s position and destination, but also warn cars several miles away of queues and accidents, helping to minimize tailgates and disperse congestion quickly by sending other cars along different routes. “The technology we’re showing today is at the level where all the operation for driving is possible by itself”, commented Moritaka Yoshida, Toyota’s chief safety technology officer. And like that setup, the Lexus Teammate technology is being developed for specific roads. Companies ranging from Google to Mercedes-Benz to Honda are all examining ways to bring self-driving cars to the market.

The race is certainly on for production autonomous driving technology.

Toyota also said that by the end of 2015, it will make a new ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) safety package available on three models in Japan. Tests are starting in the U.S., but sales plans are not yet decided. The warning appears as an image on the dashboard, and the vehicle beeps, which is useful in alerting drivers to cars and pedestrians that pop out from blind spots.

In Japan, accidents at intersections account for about 40% of all crashes.