Japanese Car maker, Toyota has announced plans to make automatic braking standard on 25 out of 30 Toyota and Lexus models, at nearly every trim level, by the end of 2017. This was announced at the New York Auto Show with plans of inclusion of Lexus Safety System and the Toyota Safety Sense packages with automatic emergency braking on almost every new vehicle by the end of 2017. This is definitely a forward step for safety and semi-autonomous driving in one of the world’s biggest vehicle brands. The question of whether it will increase reckless driving is a story for another day. It will come as non-standard on the 4Runner, 86 (formerly the Scion FR-S), Mirai, Lexus GX and Scion iA.
In March 2014, Toyota corporation consisted of 338,875 employees worldwide and, as of February 2016, is the 13th-largest company in the world by revenue. Toyota was the largest automobile manufacturer in 2012 (by production) ahead of the Volkswagen Group and General Motors. In July of that year, the company reported the production of its 200-millionth vehicle. Toyota is the world’s first automobile manufacturer to produce more than 10 million vehicles per year. It did so in 2012 according to OICA, and in 2013 according to company data. As of July 2014, Toyota was the largest listed company in Japan by market capitalization and by revenue.
“We are proud to help lead this industry in standardizing these systems and bring automated braking to our customers sooner rather than later,” said Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota Motor North America.
