On Monday, Toyota announced that they're creating autonomous pizza vehicles, designed to deliver pizzas for Pizza Hut without the need for humans. Everyone, other than sci-fi-horror Black Mirror fans, appears to be on board with the idea.
They've even thought up other neat little ideas for their design, such as a portable shoe shop that comes to your home when you need new shoes.
So far, so awesome.
Yesterday, however, Toyota announced another concept for the vehicle, but people don't appear to have taken to it as much. The car giant has announced they're teaming up with Uber in an attempt to create a vehicle that can be used for sharing rides.
Like the pizza delivery trucks, this system is intended to be fully-electric and has some cool plus-sides, such as being better for the environment.
Unfortunately, everyone can't get over the fact that Uber and Toyota are essentially attempting to invent a bus.
Some were more outraged than others.
Even a company that basically just advises people on which tube routes to take got in on the action.
They are sort of right, it is essentially a bus. Nevertheless, it's a bus with some pretty neat features. The e-Palette, which Toyota showed off at CES on Monday, is electric, will be fully-autonomous and could fit a range of purposes.
The concept is actually pretty far along, and will be debuted at the Tokyo Olympic games in 2020.
The company said at CES that the vehicle could be used as a fully-transportable autonomous shop.
"It is an open, flexible platform easily adapted to suit a range of uses, including ride-sharing, delivery, and retail," CNBC reports. "Today you have to travel to the store. In the future, the store will travel to you."
The company said that they were responding to a competitive market that was looking more and more towards self-driving technology.
"Our competitors no longer just make cars. Companies like Google, Apple, and even Facebook are what I think about at night, because, after all, we didn't start off making cars either," company president Akio Toyoda said.
"Technology is changing quickly in our industry, and the race is on."
In that race, Toyota will be using a bus.
