TOYOTA ENTHUSIASMS

WHEN A GUY IS A CAR NUT—and his name, sorta, is on the building—enthusiasm filters down. And so it seems with Akio Toyoda, current chairman of the board and past president of Toyota. Here are tidbits about Toyota enthusiasm gleaned from Automotive News, from Internet sources, and from my own personal memories of the person and marque. 

Race Driver Morizo Kinoshita. Wikipedia notes, “As an avid auto racing fan and driver himself, Toyoda has promoted sports models including the Lexus IS F and Lexus LFA at auto races. He has participated as a driver at events including the 2009 24 Hours Nürburgring race employing the pseudonym Morizo Kinoshita.” He has even served as test driver for new Toyota products.

Akio Toyoda, Nagoya-born 1956, chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation, previously president and C.E.O.

Role-playing at Toyota’s Shinoyama Technical Center. Engineers obviously focus on serious activities, but as part of the Japan Mobility Show last month they offered Toyota EVs masquerading as other vehicles. In Automotive News, November 3, 2023, Larry P. Vellequette describes how “Toyota Learns to Disguise EVs on the Inside.”

Software changes transforms the feel of this Lexus RZ. This and following image from Automotive News, November 3, 2023.

A Lexus RZ EV’s software was modified to mimic a Toyota Tundra truck, an econobox kei car, and a high-performance Lexus LFA.  For instance, Vellequette reports, “For the first quarter of the drive, an engineer in the passenger seat with a laptop maintained the RZ’s 308 hp and smooth, linear acceleration. At the quarter post, the software switched to allow the RZ to act like a Toyota Passo, a discontinued Kei car powered by a 1.0-liter engine with less than 90 hp.” Engineers even had it emit “a loud, fake whine in the cabin.” 

Masquerading as a Tundra was more fun: “The RZ responded with the low growl of the Tundra’s turbocharged V-6 and a torque-filled acceleration complete with shifts that felt like the electric midsize crossover could easily pull a large boat from the water.”

A Faux Manual. Engineers also demonstrated a faux manual EV. Vellequette describes, “Activated by button, … the UX responded just as if it had a manual six-speed—complete with correct responses to bad shifts, insufficient ‘revs’ and bad clutch work, just as in a combustion vehicle equipped with a manual. A tachometer attached to the system near the instrument cluster signaled the correct time to shift, but it also crept near the redline if the driver waited too long.”

The Purpose? Vellequette says, “The official answer ‘to make driving an EV more fun,’ seems a stretch given the heightened performance of EVs in general and the collapse of manual transmissions, at least in the U.S.  Perhaps ‘because it can’ is more accurate.” 

And, of course, it was Halloween time, a popular holiday-import in Japan.

I’d also suspect there’s a business case for this as well: EVs thus far have a sameness in operation, one that can cloud marque distinctions. (I recall Ferrari experimenting with piped-in mechanical sounds.)

Toyota Research Institute Redefines Driver Aids at the Limit. Hitherto, electronic assistance—lane correction, radar braking, and the like—has focused on shortcomings of the driver. By contrast, engineers at Toyota Research Institute have demonstrated how automated driving software can enhance operations at the car’s limit, not just in the driver’s inattentiveness.

Pete Bigelow reports in Automotive News, October 19, 2023: “The technology underpins what Toyota calls its Guardian approach to active safety. The guardian approach uses automated systems to augment human driving performance. Humans are in control at all times, but the system momentarily steps in when it detects a correction is needed.”

A simulated emergency: Software aids the driver at the limit. Image from Automotive News, October 19, 2023. 

Toyota an Outlier. Bigelow says, “Toyota emphasizes this sort of collaboration between humans and machines, which makes it an outlier among automakers and technology companies developing automated driving.”

By contrast, he says, “Most envision a stair-step evolution in which automation assumes an ever greater role in the driving process, eventually replacing human drivers. Toyota does not see such a broad transformation in the foreseeable future.”

An Enthusiast’s Perspective. I sense the automotive enthusiasms of Morizo Kinoshita in this. Wikipedia concurs: “At a press event held on December 14, 2021, where Toyota unveiled multiple concept cars with battery electric drivetrains, Toyoda was asked how he felt about BEVs, given the company’s prior emphasis on emissions reduction and elimination through hybrid and hydrogen vehicles. Toyoda responded both as chair and master driver: “’Of course I supported BEVs in terms of business, but the question was whether I was supporting them as driver Morizo. … I think we are now at a point where we can develop safer and faster vehicles with more fun-to-drive aspects. I look forward to developing such BEVs as well moving forward.’”

I applaud Toyoda/Kinoshita. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023