Toyota’s e-Palette hits blind Paralympian: is “semi-automation” to blame?

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Need a way to turn off Autonomous Vehicles (AV)? That’s what happened with Toyota’s electronic paddle at the Tokyo Paralympic Games this week. One of the company’s autonomous vehicles collided with a visually impaired pedestrian and injured him. In response, the company suspended all stand-alone e-Palette transport pods at the Games Village.

What exactly happened?

While Toyota says the accident happened during manual control, the company has suspended the use of all e-Palette autonomous driving modules.

In a YouTube video, Toyota chief executive Akio Toyoda explained that the vehicle was under manual control at the time of the crash.

The driver used the control joystick to stop at a T-junction, then when he attempted to turn, he struck the athlete at about 1 or 2 kilometers per hour.

Fortunately, the athlete was not seriously injured and was able to walk home after receiving medical treatment. Toyota is working with local police to determine the cause of the crash and will conduct its own investigation.

To date, it is not clear whether the vehicle, the operator holding the joystick, or a combination of the two, caused the crash.

Passengers aren’t the only customer The Toyota e-Palette features large doors and power ramps for quick and easy boarding.

Toyota’s focus on accessibility when it comes to the e-Palette is commendable, but you could argue it hasn’t done enough.

For the people inside the vehicle, this is great. The e-Palette is a low-speed self-contained platform at SAE 4 level. It has large sliding doors, low floors and power ramps for easy access. It is also capable of carrying up to four wheelchair passengers with standing space, which is impressive.

But when it comes to people outside the vehicle, it gets trickier.

The e-Palette has headlamps designed to mimic eye contact, which is neat but doesn’t help visually impaired people much. This is why a fundamental pillar of car-pedestrian communication is that cars must be seen and heard.

Since 2019, electric vehicle manufacturers are required to include an Acoustic Vehicle Alert System (AVAS). This is in response to claims that they are too quiet to be heard by blind people or their guide dogs.

Now, of course, it is still not clear whether the pedestrian could have heard the car or not in this incident, but the chief executive of Toyota said it shows that autonomous vehicles are not yet realistic for normal roads. .

Is the problem automation or semi-automation?

ToyotaChiefs’ comment is understandable and frankly correct, but it also sidesteps one of the biggest issues: people.

When automakers promised us the dream of self-driving vehicles, they are actually cars that drive while we take a nap or lead a meeting.

[Read:The Taliban love Toyota but why?]

But what we have so far are semi-autonomous vehicles like the e-Palette where a driver sits behind the wheel. The driver is ideally hyper-alert with his hands ready to take control. But are drivers able to safely interact with semi-automation?

In most cases, yes. However, semi-autonomous vehicles (with the help of humans) have been killing people since 2018. When a security driver in an autonomous Uber hasn’t noticed a pedestrian until it’s too late.

Tesla is also currently under surveillance after 11 cases of their vehicles colliding with emergency vehicles. There was another collision with a parked car just this week.

Although these vehicles are equipped with alarms, decelerations and other whistles to ensure driver vigilance, they are hardly a poster for further automation.

Do I trust machines more than humans? Sort of

If Toyotas e-Palette were fully autonomous, it wouldn’t need to rely on the driving skills or concentration of humans. In some ways, I trust a road full of fully autonomous vehicles more than a mix of semi-autonomous and non-automated cars.

Why? Because humans are unpredictable. They drive drunk and stoned, and speed up for fun. Autonomous vehicles don’t. So if we can work on the details (okay, there are quite a few) like their ability to distinguish stop signs in streets and on trucks and to be able to identify and stop for humans as well. than animals, things could get interesting.

But it is impossible for AVs to be deployed without the gradual increase in stand-alone functionality. Many drivers do not seem able to cope with the current level of automation. This is the catch and I don’t see a way to reconcile it.

Meanwhile, we are seeing more and more accidents and other incidents that fail to convince the average person of the future safety of autonomous vehicles. The road between L4 and L6 automations is long and proving difficult.

Do electric vehicles excite your electrons? Do e-bikes spin your wheels? Do self-driving cars fully charge you?

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