Toyota is working to broaden the safety envelope of its automobiles to protect not just mom and pop and their 2.2 kids, but grandma and grandpa, too, citing research suggesting that half of automobile-related fatalities in Japan involve people aged 65 and over. Here’s a rundown of what Toyota tells us is in the pipeline for installation in future vehicles. As you’ll see, some systems are more believable than others.
We should note that this information was gleaned from a press release sent out by Toyota’s U.K. division, though we will eventually see these systems on U.S. models, too. Unclear at this point are when any of these systems might be ready for prime time, and which of Toyota’s future models would be the first to receive them. Of course, we’re always wary of systems that attempt to think—let alone steer—for you, so we’ll be very interested in trying them all out once they’re ready—preferably on a closed course, to start.
Pre-Crash with collision avoidance assist is an evolution of the Pre-Crash system currently offered on certain high-end Toyota and Lexus models. The present system tries to mitigate the harm when crashes are imminent, but in the future Toyota hopes to help vehicles avoid crashes altogether. It mentions a system being developed to help drivers steer a safe course in an emergency, and another that would use use camera and radar technology to apply the brakes if the driver doesn’t and an obstacle is detected.
Partial-shield adaptive high-beams would, when an oncoming car is detected by a camera, partially limit the light from high beams so that it doesn’t shine directly in the face of drivers—but it would maintain near-high beam illumination of the road.
Cardiovascular monitors are among the most wild sounding of Toyota’s future safety tech. Grip sensors on the steering wheel are said to provide information of driver’s cardio-vascular functions, designed to detect drivers at risk of collapsing at the wheel due to a heart attack or a sudden black-out. What, exactly, the vehicle’s response would be was not explained, but Toyota said it has presented the idea to the Japan Medical Congress. Ford also recently announced preliminary work on systems that would integrate heart and other health monitoring into future cars.
Pop-up hoods sound more feasible than does, perhaps, the cardio monitoring. Toyota says that it has developed a pop-up hood aimed at reducing the risk of head injury to a pedestrian. It works by automatically lifting the rear of the hood to increase the cushion of space between the hood surface (which is deformable) and the engine (which is not).
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