More streamlined legislation would allow for a faster rollout.
Japanese automotive giant Toyota wants governments and departments around the world to start working on streamlined, harmonious, and efficient legislation around autonomous cars, in a push to get them out on the road in the near future. Expediting the rollout of such driver assistance systems could have a drastic effect on road mortality rates, and should be a priority for all, they say.
In comments made to Autocar at the sidelines of the recently-concluded Tokyo motor show, Toyota executive general manager Seigo Kuzumaki suggested that global cooperation on the face of vehicle autonomy would yield great benefits.
“The United States, Japan, and Germany are making good progress [in legislation surrounding autonomous vehicles], and we want to integrate the regulations as much as possible with the goal of having a global standard. We must work with authorities to achieve this.” — Seigo Kuzumaki, Executive General Manager (Advanced R&D, Engineering), Toyota Motor Corporation
The obvious benefits of streamlined legislation is that it would allow the various parties presently working toward vehicular autonomy the ability to work those regulations into the design of the technology itself. Doing so would not only allow driverless tech to get to market faster, but it would also shorten the amount of time needed for development by a significant margin.
It’s well known already the benefits that driverless technology would yield, namely the impact they can have on road mortality rates that plague many parts of the world. Companies like Volvo are already introducing various levels of autonomy in its vehicle fleet as it is (as it works to its own goal of having no deaths or serious injury in a Volvo by 2020) and are already seeing the safety benefits, while other parties like Tesla continue to ‘beta test’ their autonomous systems on the open road (which isn’t exactly best-practice).
While the idea of singular, streamlined legislation surrounding autonomous vehicles sounds brilliant, Kuzumaki did recognise that carmakers presently make vehicles to conform to various safety standards around the world, and that the automotive industry has a terrible track record as far as pushing for global standardisation is concerned, highlighted further by the present appearance of multiple electric car charging connections available on the market (which is by far one of the greatest frustrations you’ll have with a plug-in or fully-electric car).
Perhaps this is just wishful thinking on Kuzumaki’s part. But there’s certainly no harm in that.
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