Market-leading Toyota seeks to be 'reborn' in the eyes of its customers
Top executives of Toyota Motor Corporation hint at what the future may hold for the world's largest automobile maker. The Nation's Pichaya Changsorn reports from Japan, where he visited the 43rd Tokyo Motor Show and the firm's facilities in Nagoya
After capturing the crown as the world’s largest automobile maker from the US’ General Motors, Toyota is not just satisfied with sales or profit figures. The new challenge for Toyota, says Mitsuhisa Kato, executive vice president in charge of technology development, is to be an “irreplaceable partner” for its customers.
In other words, the champion of the mass market now wants to make cars that people will passionately want to own and drive. Fitting with the firm’s slogan “Toyota Reborn”, some of its latest products including the 86, Crown, Avalon and Rav4 are among the “cars that we dared to reborn”.
“What do you think of these cars? I think it’s great there are ‘fors’ and ‘againsts’. We don’t want a car that people neither love nor hate. We want to make cars that people fall madly in love with.
“That’s the direction our vehicle development is taking,” he said.
Design chief Tokuo Fukuichi said Toyota has been like “a department store”, which has a full line-up of automobiles, and now it wants to become a “select shop”.
“We’re not exactly sure what a ‘select shop’ is, but we’re going to guess the intention is to go from something like Target or Sears to Macy’s or Nordstrom,” Fukuichi told a global media session at the firm’s Kaikan Museum in Nagoya.
The design boss outlined the three design goals of Toyota – strengthen overall design identity, refine each brand’s front-end identity and tailor it to specific markets, and hone each brand’s design philosophy.
“Before, we made cars so as not to be disliked by anyone. Instead of making all 100 people say it’s okay, in the future we want 10 of them to say ‘Wow, this is what I want. This is what I want to drive’,” said Fukuichi, who was reportedly handpicked by president Akio Toyoda to take over the company’s design group.
The FV2 concept car unveiled at the motor show is probably one of the best showcases of Toyota’s new design and product development philosophy. The vehicle is operated by the driver shifting his body to move the vehicle forward and back, left and right rather than using a steering wheel.
Inspired by the Kirobo robot astronaut, the FV2 (stands for Fun Vehicle 2) demonstrates Toyota’s attempt to exploit artificial intelligence and other relevant technologies to “emotionally connect” the driver with his vehicle.
Similar to riding a horse, the driver stands in the cockpit of the vehicle which has four wheels diagonally aligned – one at the front and back, like a bicycle, and one on each side, like training wheels, for balance.
The vehicle uses voice and image recognition to determine the driver’s mood and accumulates driving history to suggest destinations and driving skill information to assist the user. An augmented reality display on the windshield, the body colour and exterior display can be changed at will, creating a more “intimate relationship between vehicle and driver”, Toyota said.
For those who want to experience the concept of the FV2, Toyota has released smartphone applications for Android and iOS.
Besides the FV2, Toyota is displaying four other world-premiere concept vehicles at the 43rd Tokyo Motor Show, which runs to Sunday – the FCV (fuel cell vehicle), JPN taxi, Voxy minivan and Noah minivan hybrid. The booth also features the Aqua G Sports compact sport hybrid, the Toyota i-Road, a personal mobility vehicle, and the FT-86 Open concept, a rear-wheel-drive sports convertible.
Toyota plans to make the first commercial debut of the hydrogen-powered FCV in 2015. Though
trailing Hyundai – which said in the same week it would begin selling a fuel cell Tucson compact SUV and become the first automaker to sell mass-market hydrogen-powered vehicles in the US next year – Toyota boasts its FCV will feature a driving range of at least 500 kilometres and refuelling times as low as three minutes, roughly matching gasoline vehicles.
In explaining why Toyota is researching and developing so many types of future vehicles, even though many other carmakers are generally more selective in their future vehicle development efforts such as Nissan, which focuses on electric vehicles rather than fuel cell vehicles, Fukuichi said Toyota believes various types of “eco-cars” will be used for their own suitable areas as they have their own strong and weak points.
Electric vehicles are suitable for short-haul driving, such as small delivery vehicles, personal mobility vehicles and motorbikes, while hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles that use gasoline, diesel, biofuels, natural gas, synthetic fuels and other fuels coupled with electricity are better for short to long distances.
The FCV is poised to be suitable for long-range purposes, such as public buses, large trucks, delivery trucks and passenger vehicles.
The future of Toyota products, as journalists were shown, doesn’t only cover its full, odd range of Segway-like Toyota Winglet, motorcycle-like FV2, hydrogen-powered FCV, the next generation taxi JPN, and so on, but also boats.
Reporters from Thailand and some other countries ended their Japan trip with an hour excursion on a Toyota luxury cruiser, the Ponam, as the carmaker is setting up a marine division in these countries.
