Two major players in the automobile industry announced, Thursday, that they were both putting one unlikely company in their crosshairs: Google.
Toyota Motor Corp. and Audi AG confirmed that the online search giant isn't going to be the only company able to brag about self-driving cars in the future. They are both going to show off automated vehicle features at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2013) when it begins next week on Jan. 8.
Neither company went into much detail about what will be demonstrated. Audi briefly mentioned that they will show off one breakthrough it made: a car's ability to find a parking spot and park on its own.
Toyota, on the other hand, went for something more dramatic when it posted a five-second video of its self-driving car on its Web site. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Japanese automaker will be displaying a Lexus model "fitted with radar and camera equipment that can detect other vehicles, road lane lines and traffic signals, giving the vehicle the ability to navigate streets without a driver."
Toyota's prototype can go entirely driverless if necessary, though it doesn't have to. Instead, its purpose is to complement the driver rather than replace him or her. It can alert a driver who's falling asleep as well as point out obstacles in an operator's path.
The Lexus will also include something Toyota has dubbed its "Intelligent Transport Systems." This technology allows the car to communicate with other vehicles featuring similar devices. If more and more cars end up adopting this kind of communication system, the potential is there for roads and highways to be filled with automated cars that can react to changing traffic conditions on the fly.
That may sound scary to some (okay, probably more), but solace can be taken in the fact that Google's self-driving car tests (ironically, Google's fleet of cars are from Toyota) have generally been a resounding success. They drove for over 160,000 miles before an accident finally occurred, and Google was quick to note that the only reason it happened was due to a human taking control of the vehicle.
