Over Promised? Toyota Claims No One Is Even Close To Having Level 5 Autonomous Driving Capability

Despite being one of the largest manufacturing giants currently in existence, Toyota is trailing in the autonomous technology war currently raging among carmakers. But it would unfair to say that the Japanese brand is losing. While General Motors appears to lead the rest of the established automotive firms, it’s not perfectly clear how big a gap it made for itself. Meanwhile, Toyota spent the last few years taking a more cautious approach, without ever ignoring the possibility of an autonomous future.

In 2015, the automaker decided to get serious, saying it would invest billions of dollars into the Toyota Research Institute. The goal? To advance robotics and artificial intelligence to a level where it could test an autonomous vehicle by 2020. But Toyota remains skeptical of the rest of the industry’s progress on self-driving cars.

skytop - 9/21/2018 5:19:41 PM

+4 Boost

What gullible fool would hand their safety and life to an auto autonomous drive system built by the lowest bidder.

TomM - 9/21/2018 7:16:01 PM

+2 Boost

I am unaware that these autonomous systems are built independently of manufacturers and let out for competitive bid BY those manufacturers . I would like YOU to cite a case where this is was true - that the LOWEST bidder received a contract for a complete system. THat may be true of some individual components but the overall systems are not independent efforts - some may be joint efforts.

Every day - vehicle buyers do EXACTLY what you say - they hand their safety over to systems built by car manufacturers - and LOTs of those have proven to be of value over the decades - Imagine a car without brakes!

MrEE - 9/21/2018 6:22:04 PM

+6 Boost

A lot of people are easily fooled.

rockreid - 9/21/2018 8:16:39 PM

-6 Boost

witnessing the absolute morons behind the wheel infesting the roads on a daily basis I cannot wait until autonomous driving becomes reality. The minute Leve 5 becomes reality we will see auto accidents plunge.

MDarringer - 9/21/2018 9:00:33 PM

+2 Boost

The same reduction in idiocy behind the wheel could be solved by not letting FOTBs drive.

Holydude - 9/22/2018 7:37:34 PM

-3 Boost

Is it better if Ferrari/Lambo/Porsche driver drag race on public roads? See plenty of that yet only the Tesla drivers are pointed out, interesting...

Holydude - 9/22/2018 7:39:42 PM

-4 Boost

Don't be a racist asshole Matt, anyone can be a bad driver and not only those FOTB.

MDarringer - 9/22/2018 7:59:23 PM

+2 Boost

FOTB has nothing to do with race. It has only to do with being new to a culture and not fitting in. Your hubris is that you see racism where none exists and seek to bully people by insisting that your lie is a truth.