Toyota Sienna Incident

The May vehicle was in autonomous mode on experimental test software (not deployed to the Commercial fleet), in light snow conditions. A vehicle behind the AV was traveling approximately the same speed as the May shuttle. The May AV began to slow for an object ahead. Due to weather conditions, the AV misclassified a speed limit sign as a pedestrian, which intersected with the predicted trajectory of the AV. This caused the May AV to apply additional braking to avoid the projected collision with the misclassified object. The following vehicle did not react promptly when the May AV started to slow down, resulting in the following vehicle braking too late to avoid collision and impacting the May AV from behind. The following vehicle then pulled around the May vehicle and drove away. Resimulation of this event with an upcoming software version shows that the May AV would not misidentify the non-exist object so would not have decelerated unnecessarily. This improved software is set to be deployed to the full commercial fleet soon. In addition, per May policy, the commercial fleet would not operate in weather conditions like those present in this incident.