Toyota Motor Corp. has suspended operations of its self-driving shuttle buses days after one struck and injured a pedestrian.
The incident occurred Thursday in the athletes village at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. It left a visually impaired athlete, Japan’s Judoka Aramitsu Kitazono, with scrapes and bruises and unable to further participate in the games.
Kitazono was crossing in the crosswalk when the Toyota e-Palette, traveling at 1 to 2 kilometers per hour (0.62 to 1.24 mph) struck him, according to initial news reports. But a statement from Toyota said Kitazono was “about to cross” when the collision occurred.
It was not immediately clear whether the victim was struck in or near the crosswalk. Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department is investigating.
The Asahi Shimbun reported there were two human vehicle operators aboard the e-Palette at the time of the crash. Reuters said the shuttle was operating in manual mode when the collision happened. Toyota did not immediately return a request for further comment Sunday.
Earlier, Toyota President Akio Toyoda offered an apology to Kitazono, and then issued a stinging rebuke of autonomous-driving technology.
“It shows that autonomous vehicles are not yet realistic for normal roads,” he said in a YouTube video.
Whether the athletes village constitutes a “normal” road is debatable. It’s precisely the sort of geofenced area where experts believe first applications of self-driving vehicles are attainable because the buses run slow-moving, repeatable routes.
The Olympic and Paralympic Games were supposed to be a global showcase of the automaker’s autonomous-driving technology that was years in the making. Instead, it may turn into a showcase of the technology’s limitations. Or, if human operators were driving, the complexity involved with human oversight of automated systems.
“We are fully cooperating with the police investigation into the incident in order to determine the cause of this accident,” Toyota said in a written statement. “In addition, we will conduct our own thorough investigation into the cause of the accident and will continue to coordinate closely with the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to ensure that we prevent any incidents from occurring in the future.”
At the outset of the games, Toyota indicated it would have 16 self-driving e-Palettes operating.
