You heard that right. Last month, Toyota issued a monumental press release that has made shockwaves in the auto industry. It may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but the auto giant has been working on developing a first-of-its-kind technology— hitchless towing.
While the work is still in its early stages, a functional product is not that far away and testing on public roads is on the horizon. How exactly does this technology work, and what does it mean for the RVing industry?
The concept behind hitchless towing
Paul Fanson, senior manager of Toyota Motor North America Research & Design’s Advanced Product Planning Office, stated that hitchless towing functions much like “follow the leader”. The lead vehicle would still be operated by a human driver, and the other vehicle (or trailer) being towed would closely mirror the lead vehicle’s movements. In a video published by Autoblog, (see far below) this concept is demonstrated at a testing facility.
For the time being, Toyota is only experimenting with the vehicle being towed a significant distance away—about two car lengths. As they hone the technology, this distance will be drastically shortened to reflect a typical towing situation. All this occurs with absolutely zero physical connection.
Future applications
Self-autonomous vehicles are here to stay, and we’re only at the cusp of their implementation. Toyota is attempting to get ahead of the curve and apply this technology to towing before its competitors. As our roads become fully occupied by driverless vehicles, hitchless towing may be a way to simplify navigation.
Picture this: Instead of every vehicle needing to independently navigate to its desired GPS coordinates, multiple cars can simply “latch on” to the car in front of it and mimic its actions. On long stretches of roads like highways, this could be very beneficial. Removing the independently operating nature of cars and creating an interconnected, hive-mind (shared intelligence) system of traffic could greatly reduce accidents. The idea is primitive and has decades of work ahead of it, but it’s very likely that this is the future of transportation.
Toyota didn’t comment much on using this technology for trailers, but it did acknowledge that they intend on making them self-propelled. Utilizing such technology would greatly reduce the hassle of a physical towing connection, but it raises many questions.
Questions and concerns remain unanswered
Progress is rarely all sunshine and rainbows, and there are some crucial considerations to make with this technology. It’s important to note that development is extremely early, and it’ll likely be years before we start seeing this being used in everyday life. Many details regarding the technology have yet to be announced. For example, what exactly is “connecting” the two vehicles? Is the tow vehicle simply utilizing sensors to copy the lead vehicle’s movements, or is wireless communication like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi being used?
Two cars playing “follow the leader” face far fewer conceptual problems. However, when it comes to towing a trailer, camper, or RV with no physical connection, some serious concerns arise:
- What happens if the digital connection is interrupted? Regardless of whether sensors or wireless technology is used, what happens if it fails? Will there be a rogue vehicle hurtling down the highway?
- In the case of wireless communication, is it secure? What steps will be taken to digitally secure the connection between the trailer and tow vehicle? If left vulnerable, a hacker could hypothetically hijack the towing connection, resulting in a highway pirate situation.
- Power and Propulsion: Proponents of this technology say that powerful, specialized trucks will no longer be needed to tow heavy trailers. Still, the trailer itself is going to require some sort of engine (fuel-based or electric). It also must be strong enough to match the velocity of the lead vehicle.
Would you ever consider hitchless towing for your trailer?
There’s no doubt that Toyota is at the forefront of automotive development. Still, it’s hard for skeptics not to be critical of their recent hitchless towing announcement. While this technology is much easier to picture when used between two cars for easy, self-autonomous navigation, utilizing it to haul a big travel trailer or fifth wheel seems far-fetched at best, and dangerous at worst.
Would you trust this technology to tow your RV?
##RVT1074b
This article discusses only 1 of the two types of towing. What about hitchless towing of your car behind tour larger RV? Now that is something I’d like to see!
No thanks
Just another caveat might be the ticket that Police will issue for the tailgating of your unattached companion.
This is a total waste of time, first of all the towing machine has to have a powered drive, and it has to be HITCHED to whatever it is towing. All this provides is another motorized thing on the road to either use gas or be charged. who would be dumb enough to buy one???? LMAO! Oh, wait! There is a hitch you will be paying a whole lot of money for a prank played on you by the Auto business!!!
Why don’t you folks do a little proof reading – it’s “hurtling down the highway” not “hurdling down the highway”. Unless, of course there are hurdles to jump over.
Maybe they’re jumping over obstacles, like potholes? Thanks, gene. It’s been corrected. Sorry I missed that. (You didn’t see the hundreds of other items I corrected in the posts and newsletters just in the past week, BTW.) Have a good day. 😀 –Diane
It will have to be all or nothing. Every vehicle or none. People hate to follow others. I’m old and I tell my wife “One of the few things I do for fun is drive the speed limit and irritate others.”
I already have hitchless towing. I drive a class “C” 🤣
Kind of reminds me of the golf bags that have this same kind of technology. That is a bag on normally looking pull cart that follows the person walking, I believe the person wears a key fob or something on their belt or something. I have seen them used on golf courses. But towing a large vehicle with no connection? Interesting but I will wait and see first.
No. I’m a bit of a Luddite,and I didn’t even get my trailer till I had been too badly crippled up by my career so that I couldn’t sleep on the ground for over 10 years. I’m still pissed off at not being able to get a decent SUV tow vehicle with a stick shift. And the move to all electric everything- I have lived in DC and Florida. Power outages have aboundedand if anyone remembers Hurricane Agnes, which flooded the bus companies and the railroad yards…or in Florida, Our wonderful summer of 2004, when after weeks of powerlessness I’d get electric back just in time to have another hurricane roll through, which is why we still have 2 washboards in the house, and oil lamps. Read/Heard too much about new parents discovering their baby monitors have been hacked and the hackers like to zero in on Mom breastfeeding. Just too much potential for problems. Let me keep my life as simple as possible.
I agree
Good thing they are looking to get the vehicles closer together. Right now there is enough room for about 6 Chicago commuters to squeeze in between them. This is an interesting concept, but how much is the tow vehicle going to cost vs a standard trailer hitch?
I hope someone is really close by with a video camera when I do a 360 on an icy highway. That’ll be very interesting to watch on a re-run. Or not!
Whatever you were “hitchless towing” would be sooooo confused! It would certainly be interesting to watch on video after the fact. Have a good evening/night, Impavid. 😀 –Diane
Connections never fail do they?! Nope, not interested, even if it was free.
Oooooh, two miles an hour on a closed track. Unless EVERY other vehicle on a regular road were self driving, a vehicle (or two) with “normal antsy drivers” would frequently fill the space between the lead vehicle and the following vehicle. Bicycles, texting pedestrians etc, etc, etc would make for interesting carnage on the roads.
It doesn’t make sense to me to have to have a second vehicle for towing. The wheelbase and weight required to make a tow vehicle safe make utilizing the primary vehicle a more practical solution.
No thanks. What happens in a panic stop?
I am not a hive driver…
the ‘hive’ will handle a panic stop much better than a human could.
I haven’t heard that yet Bob, but if you say so, I believe you.
The computer and sensors can see the forward vehicle (and probably the object causing the panic stop) before a humans mind can even register that there is an issue, and take action. How do you think auto-brake and lane keeping systems work? They’ll only become more capable in the future.
The auto brake can only see the car in front of you. You, if you’re paying attention, can see farther up.
So can the hive mind, it doesn’t even need to see, the front vehicle will report. The computer can then adjust the braking level of each individual vehicle based on the braking ability of each vehicle and constantly adjust based on traction etc. The computer can use the space between each vehicle to buffer the overall braking needed to stop the ‘train’, impossible to do with individual drivers who all react differently. I can’t design the hardware but I can easily write the code for a computer to do that.
I can see that working once all the cars on the road are hooked up (5G?) and are communicating with each other. I’ve watched vids describing this. But this is faaaar off in the future. Wish I had your computer abilities!
The computer can then adjust the braking level of each individual vehicle based on the braking ability of each vehicle and constantly adjust based on traction etc.
And brakes have never failed mechanically. No thanks to a “hive”. Mechanic for 40+ years.
The Hive! This is great. I only have to hack one vehicle to wreak havoc with the entire Hive!!!
It would help with EV range while “towing”, once it can keep up with the leader and stay maybe 2 feet from it’s rear bumper. If it’s not that close someone will try to get into the gap.
My thoughts exactly!
Just yesterday was driving through Waco and my wife had google giving directions. We were on an in-town 4 lane. It wanted us to turn left across the opposing lanes on a certain street. Problem: The divided road had a cement curb…no turning onto that street across oncoming traffic! Now…what will an autonomous vehicle try to do? Cross the curb? Freak out and stop in traffic?
In addition, many streets were temporarily closed due to the Iron Man competition. Google freaked out because of all the changes we needed to keep making and just spun. How is an autonomous vehicle going to handle a “confused” brain?
Who, in the future, is going to be liable for accidents? The autonomous vehicle owner or the manufacturer?
With the bandwidth that 5G (and future) wireless networks bring to the table, vehicles can communicate with each other. Also, those roads that were closed for the event, SHOULD HAVE been communicated by the city or the organizers to Google Maps to show that a reroute would be required. Other apps (Waze for example) allow drivers (passengers) to report when a road is closed for construction or events, right in the app.
I always find comments like yours odd. You point out the faults in the system, but don’t consider that engineers are already working on ways to overcome them. Look at aviation – we don’t fly prop driven DC3’s that navigate using signs painted on barn roofs anymore. We also are on the cusp of a revolution in general aviation with electric powered small planes, that rely on GPS systems. That technology will come to ground transport a lot faster than you think.
engineers took years to fine tune automation in aircraft. Electronics fail which is why we have quad redundancy and thousands of hours of testing to verify failure conditions. I have yet to see that in the automobile industry. also when a failure occurs, we spend maybe hundreds of hours figuring out why a part failed (especially if it failed prior to its predicted failure rate, which occurs often), auto industry does not test failed parts, just throws them away and puts in a new part. I would never, ever trust anything in the auto industry (espcially, chinese manufacture parts which fail quite frequently).
It’s nerve-racking enough to drive in the mountains but then the thought of worrying about losing connection to your tow vehicle, is crazy!
No, not now. Also, no to autonomous vehicles. I flag traffic around construction sites. We close lanes and redirect traffic with cones, barrels, and manual control. No self driving car is yet programmed to respond to my hand signals or devices.
Your hand signals could easily be replaced by a wireless device that you use to direct autonomous vehicles.
Obvious solution, however nothing I have read from NHTSA and the related entities studying this issue have come up with a secure and safe way to issue those devices. And would they be passive read only or active communicators? And when the tow truck driver needs to extend into a lane, now he needs a 2nd party on scene to control the autonomous vehicles that don’t slow or move over for his flashing lights.
Still a huge NOPE to autonomous vehicles driving in the wild.
Google “Truck platooning”