Toyota Cars Will Have Auto Shut Off and Park Capability in the Future

With the rising popularity of driverless cars these days, Toyota is not risking potential accidents with its cars and technology.

The Japanese automaker recently announced that it is adding two new systems to its future vehicles that could help mitigate accidents caused by absentminded drivers.

Starting the 2020 model year, the brand will include Automatic Engine Shut Off and Automatic Park functionalities to its vehicles.

The Automatic Engine Shut Off feature, which will be available on most 2020-model year vehicles of the brand, works in conjunction with Toyota’s keyless ignition system. Once the vehicle is left running for an extended period of time, the system will turn itself off.

Current Toyota cars give warnings to drivers about accidentally leaving a car running but do not have the capability to shut the engine down.

The new feature is especially helpful to hybrid owners who may unintentionally leave their vehicles when the gas engine is not running, thinking the car is completely turned off.

The other new system to be introduced by Toyota is the Automatic Park technology. As the name goes, when a driver gets off the vehicle without putting it in “Park,” the new system will do so automatically. However, the Auto Park feature requires that the vehicle has electronic means to set both the transmission and the parking brake.

The purpose of the Automatic Park function is to prevent accidents such as vehicles rolling away, which is also a potential case with hybrid cars.

It is not yet clear which Toyota models will get the new technologies. But what’s certain is that these features will be introduced in the upcoming model year.