Toyota is calling on governments and legislative bodies to introduce harmonised regulations for autonomous cars in order to speed up the rollout of the technology and reduce the number of road deaths and injuries as soon as possible.

Speaking following the Tokyo motor show, Naomich Hata, general manager for new business planning, highlighted that some countries were already progressing with forging ahead with regulations faster than others, and that unified regulations would cut development times.

“The United, States, Japan and Germany are making good progress, and we want to integrate the regulations as much as possible with the goal of having a global standard,” said Hata. “We must work with the authorities to achieve this.”

Hata also highlighted the benefits of finding a common way to harmonise standards and regulations around sharing and protecting the data that will be required for autonomous cars to work. He also suggested that developing a common source of high accuracy mapping could cut development times.

However, he conceded that car makers currently develop cars to different crash standards around the world, and the car industry and legislators have a poor record of setting global standards, as highlighted by the recent failure to set a common standard for electrical car charging connections.