Japanese carmaker, 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.

Seigo Kuzumaki, executive general manager, advanced R&D and engineering, said that some countries – like the US, Japan and Germany – were already progressing by forming regulations faster than others, and that unified regulations would cut development times.

While highlighting the benefits of harmonising standards and regulations, he also suggested developing a common source of high accuracy mapping could cut development times.

However, he said that carmakers 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.