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Toyota and autonomy Speed limited 丰田和自主 限速The Japanese giant is taking a measured approach to autonomous vehicles 这家日本巨头对无人驾驶汽车态度谨慎UBER’s fleet of autonomous vehicles has been parked up since one of its self-driving cars struck and killed a woman in Tempe, Arizona in March.今年3月，优步的一辆无人驾驶汽车在亚利桑那州坦佩市（Tempe）撞死了一名女子，之后该公司暂停了对无人驾驶汽车的测试 That death highlighted once again the industry’s rush to develop self-driving cars. 这宗死亡事故再次凸显出汽车行业在发展无人驾驶汽车方面有多么急于求成Waymo, a sister company of Google, plans to launch a robotaxi service in Arizona this year. 谷歌的姐妹公司Waymo计划今年在亚利桑那州推出机器人出租车（robotaxi）服务General

Motors says it will launch a fully autonomous taxi service, using cars with no steering wheel or pedals, in an American city in 2019. 通用汽车公司表示将于2019年在美国某城市推出完全自动驾驶的出租车服务，使用没有方向盘和踏板的汽车Volkswagen will make autonomous vehicles available through its new ride-hailing service, Moia, in 2021. 大众将于2021年在它新推出的网约车服务Moia中引入无人驾驶汽车Ford says it will be mass-producing fully autonomous cars by then, too. 福特也称到时将量产完全自主驾驶的汽车But not every carmaker is going at the same speed. 不过并非所有的汽车制造商都在以同样的速度推进Toyota, one of only three car companies that sells over 10m vehicles a year, has made no equivalent commitments.全球仅有三家汽车制造商年销量超千万辆，身为其中之一的丰田就没有做出类似的承诺 The Japanese firm is instead concentrating on using artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to make conventional cars safer and more enjoyable to drive.相反，这家日本公司正专注于利用人工智能和自动化技术来让传统汽车变得更安全、更有驾驶的乐趣 The immediate aim is to extend the age at which it is safe for older people to drive themselves, by using technology that can catch their mistakes. 它眼下的目标是运用纠错技术让更年长的老人也能安全地驾驶汽车Software that processes data from on-board cameras and radar units will watch out for impending crashes and try to stop the car before impact, or correct for the slow out-of-lane swerve of a tired driver.通过处理来自车载摄像头和雷达装置的数据，软件会留意即将发生的撞击并尽量及时停车，或者在疲惫的司机慢慢偏离车道时帮他修正 Other software will guide the car in slow traffic, so that drivers can relax. 其他软件会在车流缓慢时引导汽车前进，让司机可以放松精神Helping older drivers is a particular concern in Toyota’s home market, where over a quarter of people are over 65. 在丰田的本国市场日本，帮助老年司机是个尤为让人关切的问题，日本有四分之一以上的人口超过65岁But similar demographic crunches are coming elsewhere.但其他地方也将出现类似的人口危机 “Imagine a car, one day, that is so good that it will never be responsible for a crash, no matter what the driver does,” says Gill Pratt, chief executive of the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), the carmaker’s research hub in Silicon Valley. 丰田位于硅谷的研究中心丰田研究所（TRI）的首席执行官吉尔·普拉特（Gill Pratt）说：“想象一下，有一天会出现一辆特别棒的车，不管司机怎么开都不会出事故。” Intrepid data gatherers This incremental ap

proach will not necessarily leave Toyota in the dust. 英勇无畏的数据采集者 这种渐进的方式并不一定会让丰田落后As the Uber crash showed, fully automated driving is difficult, and is progressing slowly, despite the billions being thrown at it. 正如优步撞人事件所示，要实现完全自动驾驶很困难，且目前进展缓慢，尽管数十亿美元已经砸在这上面Rodney Brooks, a roboticist who sits on TRI’s advisory board, recently predicted that no unrestricted robotaxi service would arrive in a big American city until 2032. 丰田研究所顾问委员会成员、机器人专家罗德尼·布鲁克斯（Rodney Brooks）最近预测，不受限制的机器人出租车服务要到2032年才会在美国的大城市出现Toyota’s caution may let it avoid waves of self-driving hype and disappointment, while still giving it the to

ols to develop fully autonomous cars in future.丰田的谨慎或许能让它避过对无人驾驶的大肆炒作，也免得带来失望，同时仍让它获得了未来发展完全自主驾驶汽车的手段 A slower approach also lets Toyota build the high cost of gathering driving data into its existing business. 放慢脚步后，丰田还得以将收集驾驶数据的高额成本纳入到现有业务中Before their cars can drive in a particular area, robotaxi firms must map it in exquisite detail, manually and at great cost, by driving mapping cars around the area they wish to service. 机器人出租车公司的汽车若要在特定区域行驶，公司必须先投入人力和巨大的成本，驾驶测绘车在它们想提供服务的区域行驶，从而绘制出精细无遗的地图Those valuable data are used to teach AI algorithms about human behaviour in the area, as well as about road layouts. 这些宝贵的数据会用来让人工智能算法学习该区域里人们的行为和道路布局Toyota plans to gather similar data cheaply through its fleet of consumer-driven cars (by 2025 this will number some 50m cars). 丰田计划通过消费者驾驶的丰田车（到2025年将有约5000万辆）便宜地收集类似数据Outward-facing cameras and radars, now being installed in all its new cars to make them safer, will also gather on-board data that can be used to train fully autonomous driving software. 为了提升安全性，现在丰田所有的新车都安装了向外的摄像头和雷达，这些设备也能收集行驶数据，可用来培训完全自主驾驶软件Information gathered on such a large scale will allow Toyota’s AI to learn to handle traffic events that are extremely unusual, the sort which robotaxi firms gathering data in lesser quantities may never see. 如此大规模收集的信息能让丰田的人工智能学会处理极不寻常的交通事件，而收集数据不如丰田多的机器人出租车公司可能根本都不会见到这类情况Lack of “lidar” (light detection and ranging) sensors in Toyota cars could prove a hindrance, however. 不过丰田车上没有激光雷达（光探测和测距系统），这可能会成为一个障碍Lidar works by emitting pulses of laser light and watching for their reflections, thereby building a precise 3D map of the surroundings—essential for training today’s automated driving software, since video and radar do not capture the environment in sufficient detail. 激光雷达的工作原理是发射激光脉冲并测量其反射，从而构建一个精确的三维环境地图，如今这在训练自动驾驶软件时必不可少，因为视频和雷达捕捉不到环境方方面面的细节Robotaxi firms gather lidar data in every patch of city in which they deploy their cars, but Toyota will not, for the foreseeable future, be able to do so.机器人出租

车公司通过部署在城市各个角落的汽车收集激光雷达数据，但在可预见的将来，丰田做不到这一点 The firm will either need to find a way to add expensive lidar sensors to the cars it sells, or to advance its machine-learning software to the point where it can learn to drive without it. 丰田要么得找到办法为它销售的汽车加上昂贵的激光雷达，要么得升级它的机器学习软件，让它在没有激光雷达的情况下也能学习驾驶Toyota also needs to ensure that all the cars it sells have internet connections to transmit data in real time. 丰田还要确保自己销售的所有汽车都能连入互联网以实时传输数据A new arm, Toyota Connected, is aiming for that by 2020 in the firm’s two main markets, America and Japan.丰田公司的新部门Toyota Connected力求在2020年在美国和日本这两大主要市场实现这一目标 All this adds up to a bet that massive scale and patience can beat being first to market. 所有这一切都表明丰田下了这样一个赌注：庞大的规模加上耐心可以胜过先发优势Toyota is not chasing the robotaxi dream directly. But it may nonetheless end up in the right place at the right time, and with the relevant data to cash in.它没有直接追逐机器人出租车之梦。但它最终可能会在恰当的时间出现在恰当的地点，并拥有重要的数据来赚钱。