A Toyota representative says the Japanese automaker’s Georgetown plant will certainly be a key player when fully driverless cars hit the road in large numbers.
Toyota, Ford, GM and a group of international automotive engineers comprise the recently announced Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium. Scott County’s Toyota plant is best known for the production of the Camry. Toyota Mobility Communications Manager Nathan Kokes says driverless Camries may not be first off the assembly line, but they will be among the autonomous offerings. “You know the systems themselves will be on all our vehicles and ultimately the vision is that it’s just an additional feature that’s on your vehicle,” says Kokes.
Kokes says the key factor driving research and work on autonomous operation is improved safety for consumers. He says getting together on this technology makes sense. “You could imagine if we all operate in silos then there would be either different standards developed and then we would have to try to agree upon one to have for the industry,” says Kokes.
Kokes says it’s too soon to predict when the first fully autonomous vehicle will roll off a Georgetown assembly line. The Toyota spokesman says the consortium is meeting now and plans to offer progress reports in the future.