Toyota temporarily stops its self-driving car’s tests after Uber’s incident

Uber’s self-driving car killed a pedestrian on Sunday, which led to serious repercussions by everyone. Looking at the circumstances, Toyota has decided to temporarily halt its self-driving car’s tests on public roads.

The ride hailing company Uber’s self-driving car was involved in a deadly accident in Tempe, Arizona because of which the automotive manufacturer Toyota decided to halt testing of its own self-driving car on US’ public roads. The company said it would temporarily cease testing its ‘Chauffeur’ program out of respect for its test drivers.

A Toyota representative informed The Verge, “We cannot speculate on the cause of the incident or what it may mean to the automated driving industry going forward. Because we feel the incident may have an emotional effect on our test drivers, we have decided to temporarily pause our Chauffeur mode testing on public roads.”

Uber lands in hot water after its self-driving car kills woman

Moreover, Toyota Research Institute was already carrying out tests of its latest autonomous vehicles on the roads of California and Michigan and before the crash, was also in talks with Uber for buying its self-driving software. However, last week, a Toyota’s spokesperson mentioned that the company has not yet decided if they will buy the software or not, reported Bloomberg.

Few other automotive firms like Mercedes-Benz and Volvo were in partnership with Uber and have declines to comment on the accident and their ties with the company. Uber too halted all its autonomous testing in Arizona, San Francisco, Toronto and Pittsburgh.