On Friday, the Toyota CEO apologized in a video posted on YouTube after one of the company’s auto-driving vehicles hit the athlete while driving at 1 to 2 kilometers per hour around Tokyo’s Olympic Village.
“It shows that autonomous vehicles are still unrealistic for normal roads,” CEO Akio Toyoda said in Japanese in the video, according to Reuters.
Vehicle use at the Paralympic Games has been halted amid an investigation into the incident by police and the company, Toyota confirmed to CNN Business.
Toyota (TM) has provided a specially designed version of its battery-powered automated “e-Palette” vehicles to transport athletes and staff during the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, which began earlier this week. Toyota worked with Paralympic athletes to develop the vehicles, which include “handrails and seats that are easy to use regardless of height” and electric ramps for wheelchair riders, the company said in a press release. cars.
It was also said that the automated vehicles were designed to move at low speeds to increase safety, but this did not help Japanese Paralympic judo athlete Arimitsu Kitazono.
Kitazono was crossing a pedestrian crossing in the athlete’s village when an e-Palette made a right turn and struck him at a very slow speed, according to a report by Japanese news organization Asahi Shimbun. At the time, the vehicle was under the manual control of an operator, who told police that “they were aware that there was a person, but they thought (the person) (would notice that a bus was coming) and would stop cross the street)”. Asahi reported.
“A vehicle is stronger than a person, so I was obviously worried about how they were,” Toyoda said in the video, according to Reuters.
The athlete injured his head and legs and was treated inside the athlete’s village. Nikkei Asia reported that the Kitazono coach said he will miss the men’s judo match, which he planned to compete on Saturday.
“We would like to express our most sincere apologies to the injured person due to this unfortunate collision and wish them a speedy recovery,” Toyota said in a statement. “We would also like to apologize for the inconvenience caused to those who use our mobility vehicles in the Village of Athletes.”