Toyota will launch its first autonomous car in 2020. The Japanese auto maker said the Highway Teammate would be available just in time for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The driverless car is a modified version of its premium-brand Lexus GS and has already been tested on Tokyo's Shuto Expressway. Toyota explained that the car "features equipment that enables automated driving on highways from the on-ramp all the way through to the off-ramp."
The Teammate will used on-board technology to understand traffic conditions, make decisions about what manoeuvres to make, including merging, maintaining or changing lanes and keeping distance between vehicles.
The car is still a long way off from being able to navigate main roads all on its own, but the Toyota said it was working on combining its on-board tech with decision-making processes so that the car becomes autonomous.
Although Toyota has been working on automated driving tech since the 1990s, it's the latest in a string of car manufacturers and tech companies to reveal its driverless car plans, with the likes of General Motors, Nissan, Tesla and Google also competing to be the biggest player in the autonomous vehicle space.
It could still be a long time before driverless cars become commonplace on public roads. In July, the UK Department of Transport issued a Code of Practice for the testing of automated vehicles, which is being used to inform new research projects and series of trials into the use of driverless cars in the wild.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
