Toyota C-HR Concept
Making its world debut and capturing everyone’s attention at the show is a vision of our future with Hybrid – the synthesis of 20 years of creativity – the C-HR Concept car. Just as the RAV4 brought a fresh and unique view to the 4×4 market in 1994, the Toyota C-HR Concept represents Toyota’s unique view of the compact crossover segment.
Introducing an expressive new, diamond architecture styling theme to the segment, the new concept is packed full of eye-catching details that have been sculpted to represent the facetted surfaces of a precision-cut gemstone.
The new look which was a result of a global cooperation of design centres, represents a further development of our Under Priority and Keen Look design identity, but introduces new styling themes that hint at a future design direction for Toyota vehicles.
Sat beneath its coupe profile with its floating spoiler-tipped roofline, and dramatic bodywork, sits a new platform designed to satisfy customers’ demands for state-of-the-art handling and control. In conjunction, a new advanced full hybrid powertrain offers a uniquely engaging driving experience, whilst delivering outstanding efficiency.
The purpose of all concept car designs is to gauge reaction to new styling and design direction, so with head-turning looks, agile driving dynamics and advanced powertrain, we hope that a compact crossover like the C-HR will become a reality for Toyota.
Elsewhere on the stand, our vision for mobility in the future is impossible to miss. In contrast to many other manufacturers, we do not believe there is one ultimate technology for the future, we feel the best way of powering a car will depend entirely on how the customer intends to use it.
i-ROAD
We believe i-ROAD is the answer for the last few miles of travel at the beginning or end of our journeys in the city. Shown nearly two years before as a concept, our compact, fun and emissions free personal mobility vehicle (PMV), is now road legal and ready to roam.
Key to the i-ROAD’s unique driving experience is our new, entirely intuitive ‘Active Lean’ technology. Incorporating a clever setup of sensors, motors and gearing, the system automatically moves the wheels up and down in opposite directions and is able to apply lean angle when you negotiate a corner.
The fully electric PMV combines the agility of a motorcycle with the comfort of a car thanks to its weatherproof cabin (no helmet is required). The system eliminates the need to lower your feet at any point, so the driver remains enclosed in a safer closed body construction and benefit from car-like features, such as heating, audio and mobile phone connectivity.
Offering brisk acceleration and near-silent running, the i-ROAD can travel at up to 50km/h and can be recharged from a household socket in only three hours. With its futuristic looks and agility, its hard to believe the lucky residents of Grenoble (France), can now get behind the wheel of one as part of a new total mobility solution.
In a project that sees Toyota partnering with the local authorities of the city and region of Grenoble, EDF, Sodetrel and car-sharing operator Citelib, 35 fun-to-drive three-wheel Toyota i-ROADs and 35 four-wheel COMS personal mobility vehicles have been contributed by Toyota to complement Grenoble’s existing public transport network. The trial, which is scheduled to run for three years and begins this month, will offer residents a solution for the short trips planned as part of their city journey, while reducing traffic congestion and emissions and improving air quality in the city.
Powering the future
We consider fuel cell to be a key technology to future mobility – and on our stand at Paris we have another showstopper: the Fuel Cell Sedan. After 20 years of development, our first production hydrogen car, the Fuel Cell Sedan will be coming to Europe in the summer of 2015, initially available in the UK, Germany and Denmark.
At first glance you could be mistaken for thinking you were looking at a conventional petrol powered sedan, but look a little closer and you’ll see that beneath its body sits the future of sustainable motoring.
In place of the much-loved combustion engine sits something completely new: a fuel cell stack. Hydrogen, which can be manufactured from natural energies such as solar and wind, reacts with oxygen from the air to generate electricity. Working independently or both together, the hydrogen fuel cell along with electricity stored in a battery can take you wherever you want to go.
And the most incredible thing: the only emission from the exhaust is water vapour! Combine this with a refuelling time of around three minutes and driving range of over 500km, and space for four, and you can see that the Fuel Cell Sedan offers the flexibility of a conventional car, without any of the harmful drawbacks.
It will take time, and we will take it step-by-step, but we are positive that in the not-too distant future fuel cell cars will become a common sight on our roads. There’s no question that the future looks bright, but for the here and now Hybrid technology remains at the core of our business. Hybrid has become synonymous with Toyota and vice-versa, and we expect it to be the powertrain of choice for the majority of the market.
With nearly half of all Auris, and over a third of Yaris sales powered by hybrid, this technology has become a real differentiator for Toyota.
Toyota powertrain technology roadmap
The Toyota powertrain roadmap envisages efficient use of all available energy sources, to ensure a long-term future for private and public transport despite the increasing burden of restrictions on the use of traditional fossil fuels.
In this context, Toyota has been working for more than 40 years on the design and development of more environmentally responsible means of transport, with the aim of ultimately offering a full range of ecological vehicles to suit all types of user.
Drawing on its unrivalled experience in hybrid powerplants, Toyota is already producing electric vehicles, hybrids and rechargeable “plug-in” hybrids and is preparing to launch its first Fuel Cell Sedan. In this way the company is laying the foundations for the future co-existence of several types of low or even zero-emissions cars.
In the immediate future, short-range, individual mobility will be catered for by small, typically urban electric vehicles such as i-Road. At the other end of the scale, the Fuel Cell Sedan will be appropriate for long-distance journeys, public transport and freight haulage.
Between these two developing solutions, most vehicles will continue to use an internal combustion engine, powered by liquid fuels, including petrol, diesel and bio fuels, and compressed gases, such as natural gas.
Toyota remains convinced that its award-winning hybrid powerplant – with more than seven million worldwide sales to its credit – is the mobility technology best suited to addressing environmental issues and the depletion of energy resources.
Toyota’s system is a 100 per cent “series-parallel” hybrid, capable of running on a combination of electric and internal combustion engine power, or on electric power alone. It has the performance attributes of a parallel hybrid and the simplicity and clean-running advantages of a series hybrid, without experiencing the associated drawbacks of either system.
Figures published by the European Commission and European Environment Agency for 2013 show that average emissions for Toyota and Lexus vehicles sold in Europe were 116.6g/km. This shows that the company already performs better than the official 2015 target of 127.9g/km by a margin of 11.3g/km.
