TOKYO, Sept. 24, 2023– It was in the 1990s. Japan was barely emerging from the bursting of the financial bubble, when the country seriously dabbled into driverless motor vehicle R&D, competing head-on with the United States in on-road experiments by pouring government and corporate money into developing technologies and infrastructure. For a while, Japan seemed to have leaped ahead of other countries in the global ‘CASE (connected, autonomous, shared and services, and electric)’ race as Japaneses automakers showed off futuristic concept cars at international motor shows, wooing rival foreign makers. Japan now is at the bottom of the rung.
This spectacular fall (from a bird’s eye perspective, Japan had been only standing still while the rest of the world was moving ahead in both R&D and commercialization) resulted from the occasional national paralysis caused largely by the intrinsic inter-bureaucracy turf battle for leadership roles and compounded by the reluctance of Japanese businesses for risk-taking in new technologies, in this case, driverless cars.
In this case, ministries and agencies concerned – which are almost all of them – must have smelled a very tasty pie aroma as they scrambled for a share and refused to back off with the thinking that driverless cars can secure them decades, not years, of administrative and regulatory work such as rules for preemptive safety and congestion-free traffic management.
Among the aspirants were the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, which was the very first bureaucracy that raised the hand to lead for its role to develop technology; the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the administrator of roads, traffic, and bridges and land mass; the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the doyen of many things including telecom, radio waves, privacy, security, firefighters, and many more; the Ministry of Finance, which controls the government coffers; and many more.
Don’t forget police, told the National Police Agency at an inter-ministerial meeting a few years ago. NPA said, ‘We need to make sure that driverless vehicles are absolutely safe and don’t cause expected and unforeseeable problems,’ NPA is said to have orated at the meeting. ‘We also have the authority to make arrests in case of accidents.’ What?! Arrest a guy who is invisible behind the wheel!?
That’s how Japan’s progress has been stalled while the rest of the world raced ahead diligently developing technologies and traffic rules initially according the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and later the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), an independent entity also of the United States that has become a global standard setter for driverless cars, EVs and other new motor vehicle standards.
In 2017, Toyota Motor Corp. announced that it would accelerate ‘autonomous’ driving technology but since then hardly any follow-up reports from the company came out, and similarly, other Japanese automakers have been mute about their R&D. As of this writing, Honda Motor Co. seems to be ahead of the Japanese automaker pack, though the company’s technology looks no match to those of Waymo, Cruise and other U.S. robotaxi companies. It’s little surprise that Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda, the de facto Toyota leader instead of its CEO, hardly mentions CASE lately.
If Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), who is revered as the most brilliant and courageous war lord even now, had been around, he should have crushed bureaucracy and encouraged private-sector innovations and prosperity as he did to his region, which was the most vibrant and dynamic economy of japan during that period.
Japan isn’t likely to see a leader like Nobunaga anymore.
Cold, sad truth of Japan’s driverless technology development inertia all points to the country’s centuries-old societal hierarchy that admires bureaucracy, entrusting government officials to set directions for just about everything, including industrial policy.
The robocar idea, which is known to be born in the 1930s in the United States, hit Japan in the 1960s alongside artificial intelligence in a presumed influence of Stamford University’s remote control technology R&D. In 1977, the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory of the former Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) unveiled what it called the Intelligent Vehicle. The vehicle bore stereo cameras vertically to give it a two-dimensional view to recognize objects in front. The lab was founded in 1937 for developing all conceivable advanced technologies including advanced motor vehicles, AI, energy use optimization, robots, manufacturing methods, materials, and the environment. In 2001, it was reorganized into the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology of the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry as a part of government reorganization.
The lab continue robocar R&D, experimenting driverless driving at 7 miles per hour in 1984. Its technology relied on roadside signals, traffic lane recognition, magnetic markers imbedded below the road, meaning the experiment vehicle relied on information it received from outside the cabin.
To date, most Japanese robocar technologies deploy the lab’s technology, including Subaru’s ‘Eyesight’ anti-collision system.
Waymo, Cruise and other American robotaxis use similar recognition methods but they also use computer programs that seem to let vehicle computers make decisions. Tesla also seem to use a similar program for its autonomous driving.
Why the Japanese automakers continue using the technology, which is like an invisible railcar rail, developed by a government lab? They feel obligated to be subservient to government, unlike in the United States, where private companies can take the lead in experiment new technologies, not government.
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