Many automakers are working on autonomous cars. Still, it'll be years before that will be hitting the mainstream market. Nonetheless, automakers are endlessly improving their semi-autonomous technologies, some of which could be offered in production cars over the next few years.

Toyota is working on a new pre-collision system with pedestrian avoidance steering assist. The safety feature is aimed at protecting folks who aren't in the car and it combines visual and audible alerts with automatic brake assist and automatic steering.

The car can automatically steer itself around the pedestrian for last second dangers. Toyota hopes to have this technology available to customers by 2015.

On top of that, the company is also testing a feature called Automated Highway Driving Assist, which is a key part of a new adaptive cruise control system that uses vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications rather than radar based systems.

 Toyota says this helps to improve fuel efficiency and traffic flow. Toyota says this technology could be in place by the "mid-2010s."