7 curious concepts from the 44th Tokyo Motor show.
TEMPO.CO, Japan – The 44th Tokyo Motor Show (TMS) that is being held in Tokyo, Japan pampers the eyes of automotive addicts with a blend of fantastical and sophisticated technology. Japan’s biennial motoring extravaganza is always packed full of fascinating and truly original conceptual takes on the future of personal mobility and 2015’s Tokyo show, which runs until November 7 is no exception. An autonomous box for navigating megacities, the Wander Stand allows two adults to travel side-by-side and to control the direction of travel via voice commands.
On Japan’s biggest stage, many of the world’s foremost automotive players have come to impress, discuss, and shape how we’ll interact and navigate our way around in the future. The event’s tagline ‘Your Heart Will Race’ is chosen to reflect the spirit of Japan’s automotive industry to strive to produce world’s best technology.
It may look like a Transformer caught in a state of semi-undress, but it’s an exploration of the relationship between human and machine and the emotional connection that people develop with the engineering and manufacturing that comes together to create a car. Stalking real estate on the nation’s Elm Street’s to determine how nightmarish it might be, even as a dream scenario appears to be taking shape for one Chicago house flipper. Nissan, for example, attracted visitors’ attention by displaying three concept cars namely Nissan Gripz which is a hybrid sport crossover, Nissan IDS and Nissan Teatro for Dayz, both of which are electric vehicle designed to give ‘freedom’ for its driver. Nissan Motor showed a concept vehicle loaded with laser scanners, a 360 degree camera setup, a radar and computer chips so the car can “think” to deliver autonomous driving.
Toyota comes with ‘What WOWS You’ theme in another corner of the show, trying to win visitors’ heart with its Prius next generation, Toyota C-HR and Toyota S-FR. Therefore it’s a study in personalization, sharing, connectivity and, crucially a rejection of the design and styling tropes that currently frame and define a car and its purpose.
Nissan officials said they were working hard to make the car smart enough to recognise the difference between a red traffic light and a tail light, learn how to turn on intersections where white lane indicators might be missing and anticipate from body language when a pedestrian might cross a street. The good news is Mazda is killing it in the design department with its latest concepts, and even if the sports car is SkyActiv—no ‘R’—we’re confident the feisty engineers at Mazda will continue to deliver cars that keep the fun alive. Lord commander of Nissan Carlos Ghosn walked out and owned the room with his trademark presence, but the conversation was almost solely about autonomous driving. Showing off the Nissan IDS concept, Ghosn said that much like developing the world’s greatest-selling all-electric vehicle—the Nissan Leaf—the automaker would lead the charge with its developing suite of autonomous driving technology.
If we were wondering what the pecking order for autonomous driving would be, Nissan’s chief may have given us a good idea. “This technology will first make its way in Japan, followed by China, Europe, and then the U.S.” Well-marked roads, clarity on responsibility and legislation are among the hurdles the U.S. will have to overcome. That’s why some carmakers at the show are packing the technology into what looks more like a golf cart or scooter than a car, such as Honda’s cubicle-like Wander Stand and Wander Walker scooter. Volkswagen’s “respresentative director of VW Group Japan,” Sven Stein, took a cue from VW USA CEO Michael Horn, who was the first high-level executive to publicly speak on the diesel scandal.
Thanks to full-length, full-height sliding doors and even a ramp, this brilliantly packaged concept can accommodate everything from furniture to a wheelchair. Instead of trying to venture on motorways and other public roads, these are designed for controlled environments, restricted to shuttling people to pre-determined destinations.
This could well be the world’s smallest fully functioning food truck and it’s one conceived to meet all of Japan’s strictest kei car rules in terms of size, propulsion and emissions yet still serve a business. With a vibe that evokes memories of the classic VW campervan, this Suzuki concept is about offering premium luxury and accessibility to families with lots of children that happen to live in a city that’s always congested and overcrowded.
Regardless of how zanily futuristic and even dangerous such machines might feel, especially the idea of sharing roads with driverless cars, that era is inevitable simply because artificial intelligence is far better at avoiding accidents than human drivers, said HIS analyst Egil Juliussen. Such technology will offer mobility to people who can’t drive or who don’t have cars, and it can also reduce pollution and global warming by delivering efficient driving, he said. So conceptual the interior is only imagined in renderings, the Mercedes-Benz Vision Tokyo is Stuttgart’s idea of what mobility could look for Generation Z, in the megacities of the future.
REUTERS/Yuya Shino A fuel-cell car for a time when the world has moved firmly into the hydrogen age, the FCV can conceivably draw fuel from the atmosphere, and when not being driven, can be connected to the power grid to put electricity back into the community for others to use. Other carmakers, including General Motors, BMW, Mercedes, Toyota and Tesla are working on self-driving technology, as are companies outside the industry, such as Google and Uber. Design chief Gorden Wagener said “the 19th century was the age of empires, the 20th century was the age of the big countries, the 21st century will be the age of the megacities.” The Vision Tokyo follows the aesthetic we’ve seen from recent Mercedes concepts like the F 015 shown off at CES earlier this year, and the Concept IAA last month in Frankfurt. Boasting one door, a fold-down chair should the driver want to actually drive, and ditching the seats in favor of an oval sofa, Mercedes clearly had some fun playing with a pretty out-there concept.
Automakers envision a future in which cars would work much like smartphones today, to have passengers checking email, watching movies or checking out social media and leaving the driving to the car. Japan is eager to showcase such technology in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, such as having driverless cars pick up athletes from airports and taking them to Olympic Village.
With its insane proportions and dramatic, sleek styling, the LF-FC concept drew quite a lot of attention, with unrelenting crowds photographing the fuel-cell powered all-wheel drive flagship concept for a good half-hour after Lexus took the wraps off. Unexpected things could happen on roads, like a package falling out of a van, and the human brain has better powers of the imagination than the best artificial intelligence, he said.
Without question, Toyota drew the largest crowd of the day, and the country’s biggest company kicked off its press conference by bringing up Florida Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki. Possibly a message that the world’s largest automaker can’t become complacent—and continuing Toyoda’s call to bring back the fun—the conference served as both a pep talk, and promise of good things to come.
Toyota also kept the quirky going with its Kirobo Mini space robot, and minute SF-R coupe concept, which needs to be built immediately (and probably wouldn’t come to the U.S., even if it was made). It looks like the offspring of the Alfa 4C, and a mini NSX, but no matter what you see it as, Yamaha surprised everyone with some seriously sensual sheet metal in car-form.