A staff member stands between the Paralympic symbol and a board advising measures against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the athletes' village for Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan August 23, 2021.ISSEI KATO/Reuters
Toyota has suspended use of all of its self-driving e-Palette transportation pods at the Tokyo Paralympic Games village.
That announcement coming on Friday (August 27), a day after one of the vehicles collided with a visually impaired athlete.
“This collision has caused worry for a lot of people and I am very sorry.”
In a Youtube video Toyota chief executive Akio Toyoda said the incident showed that autonomous vehicles are “not yet realistic for normal roads”.
“So why did this accident occur? I think we can say that we weren’t able to cope enough with this special environment for the Paralympics where there are people who cannot see and have disabilities.”
The e-Palette, a fully autonomous battery-electric vehicle, was adapted specifically for use during the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The vehicle in question had stopped at a T-junction and was under the manual control of the operator, who was using it’s joystick.
It collided with the pedestrian going at around one or two kilometers an hour, Toyoda said.
He added that Paralympic officials had told him the athlete, who remained conscious, was taken to a medical center for treatment and was able to walk back to their residence.
The company said it was cooperating with a local police probe to determine the cause of the accident, adding that it would also conduct its own investigation.
This content appears as provided to The Globe by the originating wire service. It has not been edited by Globe staff.