Toyota has not yet decided whether it will bring a car to market that is capable of automated driving in some situations yet still requires a human driver behind a wheel who can take control if needed?but the automaker, characteristically, is more cautious than many about moving forward with the technology.
Citing safety concerns regarding the handoff between self-driving technology and human driver, Kiyotaka Ise, Toyota?s chief safety technology officer, said the biggest issue with these kinds of systems is that ?there is a limbo for several seconds between machine and human? in incidents when a car prompts a human to retake control if it cannot handle operations.
These kinds of systems, defined as Level 3 autonomy by SAE, have divided automakers and tech companies in their approaches to developing cars for the self-driving future. Some, like Audi and General Motors, believe they?re an important milestone; the likes of Ford and Waymo believe the handoff is fraught with so many problems, they?ve elected to eschew such development and pursue fully driverless cars. So far, Toyota has chosen both paths for research purposes, examining both a Guardian mode that augments human driving and a Chauffeur approach that conducts true driverless operations.
As opposed to Level 2 systems, like Tesla Motors? Autopilot, in which a human driver is expected to keep his or her eyes and attention on the road while a system conducts most aspects of the driving, Level 3 is characterized by t...