ALWAYS, I come back from the Tokyo Motor Show armed with a cache of knowledge about the past, present and future of the motoring industry. It’s been that way since I started covering the biennial meet in 1993.
The recent edition of the event—the 44th since its birth in 1954—was no exception. As I was rummaging through the mountains of materials heaped on my lap from more than 122 car manufacturers, accessory and parts specialists from around the world during another historic motoring moment from October 27 to November 8 at Tokyo’s Big Sight, once again I came upon my main focus of interest: Toyota’s six major models on display, namely, Prius, C-HR Concept, S-FR, FCV Plus, Kikai and Kirobo Mini. Each one is unique on its own, but the Prius caught my undivided attention anew, although the Kikai, a concept model, also took a special spot in my heart for its medieval-looks styling.
The Prius, since I first drove it in one of Tokyo’s main thoroughfares during the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show in one of the boldest moves by Toyota to give its journalists-visitors a free hand at test-driving, has not stopped eliciting ohs and ahs from hardcore car buffs like me. Its drawing power continues to soar so that it is no wonder that since it was launched in the US in 1997, the Prius has consistently ranked as the world’s first mass-produced hybrid, selling over 8 million already across 90 markets.
The latest Prius model can go 47 kilometers per liter from the previous 25 km/liter.
Success in technological advances has become the Prius paradigm, making it the spur in Toyota’s Mirai (Japanese for “future”) that has firmly established itself as the world’s first mass-produced fuel-cell vehicle today. Already, hybrid technology has been Toyota’s backbone not just to develop fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs), but also electric vehicles (EVs) and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles (PHVs).
How lucky I am that I was afforded by Toyota the luxury of driving, among others, three of its FCV variants at the fabled Fuji Speedway by the foot of the iconic Mount Fuji outside of Tokyo. Each of the three FCVs purred perfectly and sped effortlessly, almost without a sound. After I was done at every test-drive, I pressed the button H2O (water) at the upper left portion found above the steering wheel and, each time, water dripped down from the muffler.
Magic!
Emission-free cars!
The future is here!
Long live the world!
And so, for the record, Toyota is pushing hard for an environmental- friendly alternative.
One, Toyota hybrids on the road today, have, so far, reduced CO2 emissions by an estimated 52 million tons globally. To absorb this amount of emissions, you will need 22.3 million acres of trees, or 41 times the size of Tokyo. Two, Toyota’s hybrids have saved 22 million km of gasoline consumption compared to the average car—with Prius owners driving around the Earth 13.76 million times with fuel saved. Not only is Toyota overly aggressive in eliminating fossil fuel-free vehicles in the near future. It has also been vigorously researching and developing driving technologies since the 1990s, with an ultimate goal to eliminate traffic casualties, and provide everyone, including seniors and the disabled, with the means to freedom of mobility.
Known as Mobility Teammate Concept, Toyota is also into the so-called automated driving, whose main meat is building relationships between people and cars that share the same purpose. Toyota’s Mobility Teammate Concept’s three main components are Driving Intelligence, Connected Intelligence and Interactive Intelligence. The trio can be summed, thus, as a new automated driving-test concept called Highway Teammate, with the aim of launching related products by around 2020. The vehicle, Toyota said, represents Toyota’s view of the evolving driver-car relationship in the age of smart mobility: A driverless vehicle on the road maybe 10 years from now.
Indeed, the world will never stop changing, and motorization will always be there to keep pace with evolution. All this time, the Tokyo Motor Show has been doing a good job toward this end—amplified no end by Toyota.
PEE STOP Glad that Petron and the rest of our players have lowered their prices again. This augurs well for a more abundant Christmas celebration as the savings gained from reduced gasoline expenses could be diverted to more happiness-laden actions for family and friends…I’ve been stuck here in Baguio since November 17 working the rules on the 66th Fil-Am Golf presented by San Miguel Corp. (SMC) upon the instance of SMC President/COO Ramon S. Ang. And, as usual, Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP), through the tireless marshaling of TMP Vice President Sherwin Chua Lim, has staked a Wigo as a hole-in-one prize in the two-week event that has attracted another banner field of more than 1,200 participants from all across the universe…. Speaking of TMP, it will stage its fourth Vios Cup in Subic on November 28 and 29, with the usual array of movie celebrities among the entries to be flagged off anew by TMP President Michinobu “The Rocker” Sugata. If luck allows, I might just sneak in from my Baguio Country Club base and motor down to Subic and cover the concluding leg of the country’s famed circuit race described once by TMP Senior Vice President Jose Ariel Arias as “the game-changer in the industry.”