Toyota suspends self-driving program
Testing on public roads halted after Uber crash
SAN FRANCISCO – The ripple effect of a deadly incident involving an Uber self-driving car in Arizona widened Thursday as Toyota disclosed that it was pausing its autonomous car testing program.
“For us, it’s about the well-being of our (safety) drivers, because an incident like this can be jarring, and they’re out there every single day,” Rick Bourgoise, communications manager with Toyota Research Institute, told USA TODAY.
“We want to give (drivers) time to process and reflect,” he said. “Then we will resume.”
Toyota has a small fleet of sensorequipped Lexus vehicles that it has been testing on public roads in both Michigan and California. It will continue to test its cars on three closed, private facilities designed just for autonomous vehicles, GoMentum in California and MCity and the American Center for Mobility in Michigan.
Bourgoise said Toyota engineers in Japan would not be pausing their tests. He did not have information on whether that testing also is on public roads.
NuTonomy, a self-driving car company based in Boston, also will pause its programs after being asked to by city officials. NuTonomy was bought by Delphi last fall for $450 million, part of a wave of acquisitions designed to ensure that all sectors of the automotive industry have a foothold in the new technology.
Proponents of self-driving cars say their sensors are better equipped at detecting possible accidents before they happen and will drastically reduce the 40,000 annual traffic deaths.
Ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft have plunged into the race as well because eliminating the driver would radically improve their business models.
But critics have long cautioned that self-driving tech remains in its infancy and is not ready for testing among the general population, a cry that is bound to echo following the pedestrian death in Arizona.
Uber immediately halted its testing in a variety of cities after its self-driving Volvo XC90 struck a homeless woman who was crossing a street at night in Tempe on Sunday.
Dashboard video released Wednesday showed both the vehicle and its safety driver up until the moment of impact. The driver appears to frequently look down in the moments preceding the moment of impact, while the car never slows from its 38mph speed.
For the moment, self-driving car companies — be they large automakers or small start-ups — seem unsure of how to proceed in the wake of the Arizona incident. Most have not indi-
cated they will stop with testing.
Ford said in a statement Thursday that it would not be halting its program.
“Safety is our top priority always, including in testing autonomous vehicles, and we have an established process to make data-driven decisions,” spokesman Alan Hall said. “When more facts and data are available to us, we will make a determination about whether we need to adjust our approach to autonomous vehicle development.”
General Motors, Lyft and Waymo, Google’s selfdriving car company, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about their testing plans.
Video raises questions
Uber’s crash continues to be investigated by police in Arizona as well as officials from the National Transportation Safety Board.
Tempe police had characterized the accident as “unavoidable.” A dashboard video shows a somewhat distracted safety driver, Rafaela Vasquez, 44, at the wheel of Uber’s self-driving Volvo SUV.
In an instant, the road ahead goes from empty to filled with an image of the victim, Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was crossing the dark road with a bicycle.
Vasquez, who frequently looks down toward her lap in the final seconds before impact, did not see Herzberg until it was too late. But what remains unclear is why the car’s various sensors — which include radar, cameras and laser scanners called LiDAR — did not alert the vehicle to the pedestrian’s presence well before impact.
“This incident reminds people who think tech is a panacea that that’s just not true,” says Karl Bauer, executive publisher of Cox Automotive.
Brauer notes that when ABS, or anti-lock brakes, first appeared on the market, a combination of rudimentary tech and user error led to many accidents, as drivers pumped their brakes in order not to lock up their wheels, which confused the system.
“For that matter, airbags, which do save a lot of people, also continue to kill a lot of people,” he says. “Technology can reduce (fatalities), but it’s never going to just eliminate them. And no amount of tech will bend the laws of physics.”
To date, 32 states have passed measures that welcome self-driving cars, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. That figure stands as a testament to how states don’t want to be left behind in a race toward a new mobility paradigm that could entice companies and grow jobs.
Currently, companies are testing in about a halfdozen states, notably California, Arizona and Michigan.
“The exuberance has outpaced a sense of balance and sober reflection,” says Stephen Beck, founder of management consultancy cg42. He anticipates that the Arizona death may cause some officials to think twice before giving tech companies carte blanche for testing on their streets.
“If there’s a positive outcome from this tragedy, it’s perhaps creating a new sense of balance between accommodating the private companies that are developing this tech and the safety needs of the communities where this testing is happening,” he says.
So far, there hasn’t been a noticeable hue and cry from citizens to stop autonomous car testing in the wake of Uber’s crash. But, Beck says, that could still come.
“Regular people are simply not clamoring for these vehicles, and the vast majority simply don’t have interest in them,” he says. “And what we’re seeing here is, the technology is just not there yet.”