Toyota recently announced their plans of having fully operational self-driving cars on the highways by 2020. This technology requires the driver to activate it, but will get the vehicle on the highway, slow down or speed up, and merge lanes when necessary. However, Toyota’s Chief Safety Officer announced that programming the technology for cities is much more complicated, so that spectrum is still untouched. In order to be atop their competitors, they announced that they have been working on this technology for a decade and revealed the current technology they have in 2016 cars. Intelligent Transportation System, as they call it, allows cars to signal back and forth between each other and lights. It also allows the car to brake if the driver does not slow down while approaching a red light.
picture from: http://www.toyotacarlsbad.com/blogs/595/toyota-carlsbad-news/self-driving-cars-ready-or-not-here-they-come/
Toyota’s big unveiling seems to me like a chance to create a “ladder” or be first on a new one. In class we talked about positioning a company, and how effective being the first or having the first of something is. I believe Toyota is attempting to put themselves in the mind of the consumer as the first self-driving cars. Eventually, every big company will have self driving cars, but everyone will recognize Toyota as the first one to the game; however, if they don’t beat google to it, then they will have to find and occupy a new ladder such as: better quality, better design, etc.