The prospect of driverless cars is enough to make a commuter weep with joy. Imagine sleeping on your way to work, then kicking back with a Bud Light Lime on your way home. Pretty trill, right?
Well, the chairman of Toyota doesn’t want you getting your hopes up.
Bloomberg reports that Takeshi Uchiyamada, who headed up the team that developed the Prius, focused mainly on hybrids in recent remarks to the Economic Club of Washington, setting a goal for the industry of 5 million models sold in the U.S. by the end of 2016.
But he also spared a couple of moments to manage our expectations for driverless cars. He informed the audience that, sadly, the first models won’t let you sit back and “drink champagne and have fun.” Nope, you’re going to have to pay some attention:
“The cars that are being tested right now, development is not being done to create that kind of driverless car,” he said. “At the end, each and every one of you will have the responsibility to drive that car.”
You can’t kill our dream of robot chauffeurs, Mr. Uchiyamada, so don’t even try.