Toyota’s “talking cars” in US in 2021

Toyota intends selling vehicles In the US in 2021 that talk to each other using short-range wireless technology.

The company says this can potentially prevent thousands of crashes annually and it hopes to have the technology across most of its line-up by the mid-2020s.

The US Transportation Department must decide whether to adopt a pending proposal that would require all future vehicles to have the advanced technology, CNBC reports

Toyota also hopes other automakers will follow.

Two years ago, the US government proposed requiring the technology and giving automakers at least four years to comply, ensuring all vehicles “speak the same language through a standard technology”.

Automakers were granted a block of spectrum in 1999 in the 5.9 GHz band for “vehicle-to-vehicle” and “vehicle to infrastructure” communications and have studied the technology for more than a decade, but it has gone largely unused, CNBC says.

General Motors began offering vehicle-to-vehicle technologies last year on its Cadillac CTS model, but it is the only commercially available vehicle with the system.

Data is broadcast up to 10 times a second to nearby vehicles, which can identify risks and provide warnings to avoid crashes, especially at intersections.

Toyota has used the technology in Japan in more than 100,000 vehicles since 2015.