INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

TOYOTA’S SELF-DRIVING CAR

CRITICAL THINKING
BM007-3-2 CTM
LECTURER: MR. PRATEEK LALWANI
ARYA BHARTI (NP000001)

HANDS OUT DATE: 6th September, 2017

HANDS IN DATE: 30th October, 2017

WEIGHTAGE: 60%

WORD COUNT: 2219 words

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
1. Submit your assignment at the administrative counter
2. Students are advised to underpin their answers with the use of references (cited using the
Harvard Name System of Referencing)
3. Late submission will be awarded zero (0) unless Extenuating Circumstances (EC) are upheld
4. Cases of plagiarism will be penalized
5. The assignment should be bound in an appropriate style (comb bound or stapled).
6. Where the assignment should be submitted in both hardcopy and softcopy, the softcopy of the
written assignment and source code (where appropriate) should be on a CD in an envelope / CD
cover and attached to the hardcopy.
7. Pass mark is 50%.
 Acknowledgement

I would like to express a deep appreciation to Lord Buddha Education Foundation (LBEF)
affiliated to Asia Pacific University faculty of management for making this project mandatory
requirement in Bachelor.

I am thankful to our Lecturer Mr. Prateek Lalwani sir who has helped me in fulfilling this project
with proper guideline about the project and its topic.

At last but not the least I want to express thanks to my friends who have provided me a proper
guidance in the preparation of this report and also thanks to all those people who have helped
indirectly to complete my report.

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Executive summary

This is an attempt to know how the technologies in this generation is being carried out. The topic
that have been chosen by me is Toyota’s self-driving car which is based on the Artificial
Intelligence which is amplifying the skills and capabilities of human.

The first part of the project report, begins by describing the overview of Self-driving car and
Toyota self-driving car which describes a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and
navigating without human input. Information is gathered through secondary source. The readers
will get to know about the important components used by the autonomous car which include the
main two system “Guardian” and “Chauffer” which will help the car to get to know about the
habit, behavior and which can talk to human drivers. Car’s current capabilities as well as
opportunities of key enabling technologies are reviewed, along with a discussion on the factors
for their fast growth.

I have discussed some of the current challenges that Toyota has to overcome for the new
development i.e. Toyota’s self-driving car. I have included the future prospects as well which
describes the concept-i model called “Yui”. I have recommended some recommendations to the
company. The report ends with the conclusion and references too.

Table of Contents

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1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................1

1.1. Components of Toyota’s self-driving car.............................................................................1

2. Toyota Self-driving car’s market opportunity.............................................................................3

3. Factors for growth of Self-driving car.........................................................................................4

4. Challenges faced by Toyota Self Driving Car.............................................................................5

5. Future prospects...........................................................................................................................6

6. Conclusion and Recommendation...............................................................................................8

7. Bibliography................................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction
To begin, a self-driving car is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating
without human input. A self-driving car is a vehicle equipped with an autopilot system, and
capable of driving from one point to another without aid from an operator. Carmakers have
begun to introduce advanced driver-assistance systems such as adaptive cruise control which
automates accelerating, braking and steering. The systems have become capable enough that new
luxury vehicles can drive themselves in slow-moving highway traffic.

Toyota Research Institute

(TRI), the biggest
carmaker in the world
located in Toyota Motor
Corporation, Toyota City,
Japan, founded in 1937 disclosed the latest version
of its autonomous vehicle, featuring better sensors, improved detection, and two steering wheels
to better transfer control from human to robot.[ CITATION And17 \l 1033 ] TRI chose the LS 600h L
as the foundation for its advanced test vehicle for the first time in 2013. [ CITATION Rus17 \l 1033 ]

Toyota will begin testing self-driving cars that use artificial intelligence to "talk" to human
drivers around 2020. While some automakers and tech companies believe autonomous cars will
make human drivers jobless, Toyota wants autonomous systems to compliment human drivers
with the help of Artificial Intelligence. [ CITATION Ste17 \l 1033 ]

Toyota Motor has traditionally developed such self-driving technology in Japan and then tried
for U.S. driving conditions. But increasingly, the company will develop the technology for both
markets. [ CITATION Han17 \l 1033 ]

1.1. Components of Toyota’s self-driving car

Self-driving car use GPS, Lidar, Radar, sensors, cameras and lasers which can detect objects,
people, vehicles, construction zones, birds, cyclists and more. But the two main drivers that
Toyota uses is “Guardian” and “Chauffeur”.

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Guardian is a driver-assist system that monitors the environment around the vehicle, alerting the
driver to potential hazards and stepping in to assist with crash avoidance when necessary. The
system will try to alert drivers through audio, visual and haptic signals to get them to take actions
to avoid accidents. It also monitors the driver’s behavior within the vehicle, using an infrared
sensor mounted on the steering column to detect drowsiness or distraction. [ CITATION Ala17 \l
1033 ]

The first, which Toyota calls Chauffeur is exactly what it sounds like: a full self-driving system
that requires no human intervention, at least under certain conditions. Chauffeur is research
where the car is restricted to certain geographical areas like a city or interstates, which would
work anywhere. Guardian and Chauffeur systems are very similar. The main difference is that
Guardian jumps in only when it’s needed, while Chauffeur is on all the time when the car is in
autonomous mode. [ CITATION Toy16 \l 1033 ]

 Lidar: The heart and most expensive component of Google’s self-driving car is the rotating
roof top camera, Lidar, which is a laser range finder. This camera creates 3D images of
objects helping the car see hazards along the way. This device calculates how far an object is
from the moving vehicle based on the time it takes for the laser beams to hit the object and
come back.
 Radar: Radar is an object-detection system that uses radio waves to determine the range,
angle, or velocity of objects. 4 radars mounted on the car’s front and rear bumpers enable the
car to be aware of vehicles in front of it and behind it.

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 GPS: The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based global navigation satellite
system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the
Earth, where there is an unclosed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. GPS receiver
calculates its position by precisely timing the signals sent by GPS satellites high above the
Earth. GPS units show derived information such as direction and speed, calculated from
position changes.
 HD video camera: A camera mounted near the rear-view mirror detects traffic lights and
helps the car’s onboard computers recognize moving obstacles like pedestrians and
bicyclists.
 Position Estimator: A sensor mounted on the left rear wheel measures small movements
made by the car and helps to accurately locate its position on the map. [ CITATION Tom171 \l
1033 ]

2. Toyota Self-driving car’s market opportunity

Self-driving cars are currently receiving much attention on oriented business models and
advertising platforms. Consumers are not willing to pay a significant premium for self-driving
car technology because they value their own time differently than commercial users of self-
driving car technology.

Technological advancement, increasing number of road accidents, and growing demand for
automation are the key factors driving the growth of the market. Moreover, growing investment
in research & development for commercialization of these cars would provide growth
opportunities.

The larger the sales volume, the higher is the incentive to find other, more cost-effective
solutions. Even if they initially agree to source the universal self-driving hard- and software
modules, they will work hard to reduce their dependency on it. And they will find many ways to
scale back the size of the external self-driving car module.[ CITATION DrA171 \l 1033 ]

Recently, major corporations have announced plans to begin selling such vehicles in a few years,
and some jurisdictions have passed legislation to allow such vehicles to operate legally on public
roads. Self-driving car has been passed its laws in US in 4 states. It can grab both market in

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Japan and US. In Nepal, people themselves are not much aware of the self-driving car and due to
the expensive cost of the car people cannot afford the price to buy.

3. Factors for growth of Self-driving car

Driving a car requires more than simply a car and a driver. A state issued license is needed as
well as the appropriate regulatory framework, insurance and infrastructure. The political,
environmental, and social impacts of autonomous cars are wide-ranging. The inventions of the
integrated circuit (IC) and later, the microcomputer, were major factors in the development of
electronic control in automobiles.

1. Environment Factors:
 Safety: As discussed previously, the human toll associated with automobiles is sobering and
the vast majority of preventable deaths are attributable to human error. Furthermore, with
projected wealth increases in developing economies, the number of cars and drivers, and
therefore the number of fatalities, is expected to increase.
 Commute Reduction: Americans currently spend almost an hour on average commuting
every day. Based on simulation studies Ford projects that if one in four cars had Ford’s
Traffic Jam Assist or similar self-driving technologies, travel times would reduce by 37.5%
and delays would reduce by 20%. This is due to the fact that adaptive cruise control (ACC) is
better at pacing the car ahead without continual brake, speed-up, and brake cycles.
 Infrastructure & Fuel Efficiency: Most industry observers identify two main initial customer
demographics for autonomous vehicles: aging baby boomers and older adults who make up
42% of the population and “Digital Natives” and “Gen Now” Groups who make up 44% of
the population.[ CITATION Rat131 \l 1033 ]
2. Impacts on Traffic: Traffic is currently a trouble to drivers all over the world. The
autonomous vehicles would be following all traffic laws while human drivers have choice to

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 break the law. As time progresses and the autonomous car becomes a more commonly used
vehicle on the road, traffic would become far less crowded. With the reduction of traffic,
there is a chance that there could be economic improvements.
3. Fuel economy: Autonomous vehicles will eliminate ineffective speeding up and breaking,
operating at an optimum performance level in order to achieve best possible fuel efficiency.
Even if the fuel efficiency achieved by the autonomous vehicles where 1 percent better, this
would result in billions of dollars of savings in the US alone.
4. Time costs: The amount of time in a person’s life is most important thing and the monetary
value of time is increasing every day. Using autonomous cars could save the amount of time,
having more time for leisure activities would raise our life standards. There will be the
elimination of traffic problems in cities. [ CITATION Mat16 \l 1033 ]

4. Challenges faced by Toyota Self Driving Car

 The equipments and technologies used are costly: As discussed earlier, the main equipments
used in Google’s self-driving car are Lidar, radar, position estimator, GPS, HD video
cameras are very costly now. The featured Lidar system costs around $75000 to $80000,
visual and radar sensors estimated to cost about $10000, and a nearly $200,000 GPS array.
[ CITATION Chu14 \l 1033 ]
 Complex Artificial Intelligence software: Artificial Intelligence is the brain of the robotic
cars and implementation of the system in this technology is much more complicated.
Completely automating the car is a challenging task.
 Present road conditions may vary and which will affect the decisions made by the software
since the system is based purely on AI (Artificial Intelligence), the decisions made by the
human drivers may vary.
 Laws and regulations: Regulatory and legal factors are frequently cited as critical enablers
and obstacles of self-driving cars. Given the safety benefits, the government may promote the
adoption of autonomous vehicles. As it has done with hybrid and electric vehicles, the
government may offer tax incentives to manufacturers and purchasers of autonomous
vehicles. Four U.S. states (Nevada, Florida, Texas and California) have already passed laws
permitting autonomous vehicles as of September 2012.

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 Insurance: Insurance underwriting is a complex issue for autonomous vehicles. The question
of who “owns” the risk if an autonomous vehicle is in an accident will need to be addressed
solutions to gain mass-market adoption. Automobile makers and Google have promoted state
governments to absolve them of any liability.
 Competitors: Toyota has failed to commercialize its cars so far, falling behind competitors
like (Alphabet’s Waymo) Google and General Motors.
 Cyber security: No evidence is there that autonomous cars will be any more secure than any
other networked computers. A self-driving car is a collection of networked computers and
sensors wirelessly connected. Keeping the systems safe from stalkers who may wish to crash
cars or turn them into weapons, may be the most frightening challenge autonomous driving
will face.

The chart shows percentage of consumers who feel fully autonomous vehicles will not be safe.
The above chart describes that the car will face challenges because people are not able to trust,
are not willing to spend much money on the car.

5. Future prospects
The evolution to an automated transportation structure will greatly prevent many problems
caused by the traffic. Implementation of the autonomous cars will allow the vehicles to be able to
use the roads more efficiently, thus saving space and time. With having self-driving/automated
cars, narrow streets will no longer be a problem and most traffic problems will be avoided to a
great extent by the help of this new technology. It is seen that most government officials and

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scientists see the future of transportation as fully automated structure which is much more
efficient than the current structure. [ CITATION Ste171 \l 1033 ]

Toyota's Concept-i vehicles, equipped with its AI virtual assistant called Yui, are going to hit the
roads for trial runs in 2020. It will be able to estimate the emotions and alertness of drivers by
reading their expressions, actions and tone of voice The Japanese carmaker wants to make waves
in the future of transportation.

Toyota, however, promises that their 2020 autonomous vehicle tests will be different, as these
vehicles will be powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Toyota wants their AI to be able to chat
with drivers and get to know them better by using their preferences, emotions, and habits, which
Yui builds through deep learning.[ CITATION Dom17 \l 1033 ]

In my opinion, the company; Toyota self-driving car will soar high in the future. All
developments show that one day the intelligent vehicles will be part of our daily lives, but it is
hard to predict when. To take this advantage of autonomous cars, public they have to be
proactive.

The chart shows that self-driving car will soar high in the future in the global market in US
including Asian countries but only after passing all the laws. Country, like Nepal will not benefit

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the company. Self-driving car will not be able to create market strategy because of the country’s
condition of roads, the laws and regulation of government and most important thing; if the car is
in accident then who will be the responsible.

6. Conclusion and Recommendation

In conclusion, there are many strong socio-economic motivators for the adoption of autonomous
vehicles. Human safety, infrastructure efficiency, quality of life and a ready customer base are
just a few of the key factors that will help make self-driving cars a reality. Automation reduces
human error and increases efficiency of the product. Yet to be solved are the complex issues
associated with the legal and liability infrastructure. The future will surely include autonomous
vehicles; the only question is how quickly.

Automobiles typically cost fifty times than mobile phones and personal computers. Autonomous
vehicles will probably have relatively costly equipment and service standards, similar to
airplanes, which may discourage some users. So my recommendation to the company is to
maintain their car cost so that people can experience the selfless drive. Toyota self-driving car
has to drive down costs, especially for the car's crucial space-mapping Lidar unit. The system
need to focus on the cyber security because the technology is all based on the Artificial
Intelligence and connected networks. The work on regulations of the cars has to be done to earn
the public trust so that public they can be proactive before riding and experiencing the driverless
car.

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7. Bibliography
Edelstein, S., 2017. The Drive. [Online]
Available at: http://www.thedrive.com/tech/15166/toyota-will-test-self-driving-cars-with-ai-by-
2020
[Accessed 16 October 2017].

Elias, T. T., 2017. SCRIBD. [Online]

Available at: https://www.scribd.com/doc/61845742/robotic-car-seminar-report
[Accessed 2017].

Galeon, D., 2017. MACH. [Online]

Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/toyota-s-new-self-driving-cars-will-chat-
drivers-ncna811826
[Accessed 19 October 2017].

Greimel, H., 2017. Automotive News. [Online]

Available at: http://www.autonews.com/article/20171030/OEM06/171039990/lexus-self-driving-
toyota-level-4
[Accessed 30 October 2017].

Hars, D. A., 2017. Driverless car market watch. [Online]

Available at: http://www.driverless-future.com/?cat=25
[Accessed 23 September 2017].

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Hawkins, A. J., 2017. THE VERGE. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/27/16373058/toyota-research-institute-self-
driving-car-luminar
[Accessed 27 September 2017].

Heaps, R., 2017. Autotrader. [Online]

Available at: https://www.autotrader.com/car-shopping/self-driving-cars-toyota-reveals-its-
second-generation-autonomous-test-vehicle-267178
[Accessed July 2017].

Lam, S., 2017. REUTERS. [Online]

Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-toyota-strategy/toyota-to-test-self-driving-
talking-cars-by-about-2020-idUSKBN1CL14Y
[Accessed 16 October 2017].

Ohnsman, A., 2017. Forbes. [Online]

Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/03/07/in-the-race-to-perfect-self-
driving-cars-toyotas-first-stop-is-crash-free-camrys/#6e52dc436871
[Accessed 7 March 2017].

Ratan Hudda, C. K., 2013. Self Driving Cars. [Online]

Available at: https://ikhlaqsidhu.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/self_driving_cars.pdf
[Accessed 29 May 2017].

Stoffel, M., 2016. CLOUDS. [Online]

Available at: https://9clouds.com/blog/potential-benefits-of-self-driving-vehicles/
[Accessed 2016].

Tannert, C., 2014. Fast Company. [Online]

Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/3025722/will-you-ever-be-able-to-afford-a-self-
driving-car
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Team, T., 2016. Financhill. [Online]

Available at: https://financhill.com/blog/uncategorized/why-toyota-is-taking-its-own-road-to-

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[Accessed 2017].

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