Several years ago, Toyota pledged it would have autonomous vehicle service at the 2020 Olympics. They have now announced it will be a very meager service, using their e-Pallate "shuttle" concept, running only for athletes in the village, at the very low speed of 20 km/h, and with a safety attendant on board.
In other words, what French shuttle maker Navia/Navya was selling, not simply showing off, in 2014.
This is very disappointing. The Olympics are a showcase of course, and Hyundai did simple highway shuttles in Genesis vehicles, also with safety drivers, at the 2018 Olympics. But these are a step down even from that, and will travel at a speed that almost any Olympic athlete can jog without breaking too much of a sweat.
Toyota has been a strange laggard in the robocar race, with serious efforts but few results. They appointed Gil Pratt, for whom I have high respect, to head Toyota Research Institute, but he is definitely on the conservative side when making predictions of how quickly the technology may develop. His predictions could, of course, be correct, but there is a serious danger that they can also be self-predicting. A company that doesn't believe it will make robocars before 2030 won't make them before 2030, even if it's actually possible. If Dr. Pratt is right, he saves Toyota a lot of waste and mistakes. If he's wrong, it could seriously hurt Toyota's future.
Strangely, all the Japanese automakers have fallen behind in the competition to build robocars. That went against intuition, since Japan has such a strong reputation both in auto manufacturing and robotics. The Japanese automakers may be forced to license the technology from other companies, either startups they acquire or from tier-one suppliers. They will not be in control of it the way some other players will be.
As a shuttle, this vehicle also misses the point when it comes to Robocars. While it's true that driver salaries are a large part of the cost of running a shuttle service, the whole idea of group shuttles that run on fixed routes and schedules is not what robocars are about. They're about on-demand travel, on ad-hoc point to point routes, not just replacing human workers. People can and should travel together to be more efficient in use of energy and road space, but this should happen when it makes sense for them to do that, which is generally only at peak travel times when there are naturally occurring "carpool" needs. Outside of peak times, small vehicles are cheaper and more efficient, as long as you don't need to have a driver, because they rarely carry empty seats.
I understand Toyota's decision to put a safety attendant in the vehicle. While there is no steering wheel, presumably this attendant will be able to quickly stop the vehicle. It doesn't take far to stop at 20 km/h. And the attendant can make sure people can deal with the unusual technology. Toyota doesn't want to risk something going wrong with Olympic athletes -- that would be an international shame, rather than showcase.
It is interesting in contrast to Waymo's announcement (which I will cover in more detail later) this week that more riders in their Chandler Arizona pilot project will be moved in vehicles with no safety driver at all. That's much more of a landmark than Toyota's plan.
