No ‘Forcing’ Self-Driving Cars on Those ‘Terrified’ of Them, Says Toyota Policy Person

“Cost is a challenge” in developing self-driving vehicles for mainsteam commercial deployment, said Hilary Cain, Toyota North America director-technology and innovation policy, on a CTA podcast Tuesday. “When you look at these test vehicles you see out on the road, the cost of the sensor suite is sometimes more, oftentimes more, than the cost of the vehicle itself,” said Cain. “So I do think that this cost factor is a major concern for a lot of companies in figuring out how to democratize the technology, so to speak, and not just have it be something that’s available to the top of the income scale.” Cain thinks there’s “a little bit of truth” in all consumer-attitude survey reports, whether they show consumers are excited about autonomous vehicles or are scared of them, she said. “The goal’s got to be for all of us in the developer community to meet each of those consumers where they are,” she said. “I don’t think anyone’s talking about forcing this technology on somebody who’s terrified by it. But certainly we want to make the technology available to those folks who are excited by it.”