Semi-Autonomous Lexus GS Is Driving Around Japan

By adpock - October 7, 2015

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You better enjoy driving your Lexus now, because pretty soon a robot is going to be taking over.

Seriously, Toyota has a Lexus GS loaded with semi-autonomous technology. The car is driving around Japan right now, without much help from its human driver/passenger.

According to Automobile:

Using both external sensors that monitor traffic conditions, and a highly accurate GPS map, the Lexus GS test car can take over control from a human operator once it enters a highway. The car then steers, brakes, and accelerates, “in much the same way as a person would drive,” Toyota says. The technology allows the car to change lanes and enter or exit highway merge lanes automatically.

Frightening, right? But Toyota isn’t just doing this because they want to keep me off the streets of Japan; within the next five years, the plan is to put this semi-autonomous system, which they’re calling Highway Teammate, into production.

The scariest part of this technology is actually the fact that Toyota is trying to sell us on the normalcy of the idea, by telling us that we humans and our autonomous helpers are teammates, as the name of the system implies, and that we are “like close friends who sometimes watch over each other and sometimes help each other out.”

Okay, that’s a little creepy, right? But still, this is the future. And it’s coming fast; many other companies are working on the same type of features. And judging from the videos below, which show the Highway Teammate in action, it looks like Toyota has a darn good head start on making said future a present day reality.