August 30, 2021

Toyota announced that it had suspended its autonomous shuttle service at the Tokyo Paralympic Village a day after one of its vehicles, which was manually controlled at the time, collided with a visually impaired athlete.

Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda commented on the incident via YouTube video and sincerely apologized.

“It shows that autonomous vehicles are not yet realistic for normal roads,” he said.

Toyota indicated it was cooperating with the local police department to determine the cause of the incident and would conduct an internal investigation later as well. Furthermore, the Japanese automaker assured that it would continue to work closely with the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee to prevent further incidents.

For more information, read the original story in Reuters.