Global Vehicles - 2001 Tokyo Motor Show

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Toyota

Toyota is the biggest player in Japan, with a market share traditionally over 40%. Add mini and heavy vehicles produced by group members Daihatsu and Hino, respectively, and their aggregated take comfortably exceeds the magic 50% level. Toyota is relentlessly pursuing an even larger market share, introducing a record number of new vehicles this year. On the concept-car front, it arrayed no fewer than seven, including two that had been shown at Detroit and Frankfurt.

The Toyota FXS is an ultra-high-performance rear-drive roadster powered by a quad-camshaft 4.3-L V8 driving via a sequential-shift manual six-speed gearbox.

FXS stands for Future Experimental Sports car, and is just that, according to a senior engineering executive, who denied its lineage to the Supra or a wished-for resurrection of the great 2000GT. It is a relatively short, very wide, and low roadster with little weather protection except the small racecar-type windscreen. It measures 4150 mm (163 in) long on a 2500-mm (85-in) wheelbase, and is 1870 mm (74 in) wide and 1110 mm (44 in) tall. The chassis—from what little seen under the almost fully covered and flat floor—is pure sports car, with "in-wheel" (the suspension arms' outer ends are within the wheel) short/long arm (SLA) arrangement at the front and a similarly low multilink rear. The open bodywork has a high central tunnel, and the car's curb mass of 1300 kg (2870 lb) suggests liberal use of lightweight materials.

The FXS' BEAMS engine is a tuned version of the Lexus quad-cam, 32-valve, 4.3-L V8, but no output numbers are quoted, except that maximum power is produced at 8000 rpm. It is mated to a new six-speed sequentially shifted mechanical transmission developed by Aisin AI and shifted by a pair of paddles on the steering wheel. Each corner is fitted with a four-caliper disc brake, and tire sizes are 245/40R18 at the front and 285/35R18 at the rear.

Sensuous roundness, with shades of the French classic looks about it, is a marked departure from contemporary Toyota design practice. The Toyota Museum has a magnificent Delage that might have influenced the FXS creators and could account for the strange vertical egg-shaped indentation on its nose and flamboyant instrument panel lighting, courtesy of Stanley, the lighting specialist.

Toyota's ultimate fuel miser, the four-seat ES3 proposal, attains 2.7 L/100 km (87 mpg) fuel consumption with the help of a new common-rail diesel engine and CVT.

The ES³, introduced at Frankfurt and returned home, incorporates significant technologies that will appear in Toyota's future models, especially those for the competitive European B-segment small-car market. Toyota claims a 2.7 L/100 km (87 mpg) fuel consumption number on the ECE mode, thus qualifying as a "three-liter (per 100 km)" car. Translated into the Japanese relatively low-speed urban 10/15-mode, the car attains a remarkable 47 km/L (111 mpg). That is 40% better than a typical fuel-efficient small car, according to Toyota's calculation, of which 15% is attributable to reduced resistances and 25% for powertrain efficiency, reductions in driving energy, and regeneration and reuse of energy. The powertrain consists of a turbocharged, 1.36-L, four-cylinder diesel with common-rail direct injection (DI), an advanced steel-belt-and-pulley CVT combined with a high-efficiency torque converter, and a generator driven from the CVT. The generator is used to regenerate energy on deceleration, storing it in a high-voltage (42-V) capacitor, which feeds electricity, via a dc/dc converter, to the 12-V lead-acid battery that supplies electricity to the vehicle's ancillaries. Thus, the engine is largely relieved of generating electricity.

Two tough-to-control pollutants associated with the diesel are cleaned through the DPNR (diesel particulate, NOx reduction) catalytic converter. Toyota claims the ES³'s emissions performance is equal to that of the gasoline engine meeting Japan's ULEV levels, with the proviso that a suitable low-sulfur fuel would become commercially available.

The bodywork is a welded aluminum spaceframe construction made up of extruded, stamped, and cast light-alloy components. Lightweight materials are generously used in the body and chassis, contributing to the vehicle's curb mass of 700 kg (1540 lb). Aerodynamics is another important route to the car's outstanding fuel efficiency, with an ultra-low drag coefficient of 0.23.

The POD runabout features a versatile interior.

The POD is an automotive alter ego that expresses happiness, sadness, anger, and lethargy by changing its facial color (bars on its stubby front end), by blinking its eyes (headlights), or by wagging its tail (radio antenna), according to the company. It is a tall and short—1860 and 3930 mm (73 and 155 in), respectively—sedan with four center-opening doors and is powered by Toyota's standard issue 1.5-L inline four driving the front wheels. Four people are accommodated comfortably in seats that can swivel to create a chummy atmosphere when parked. As curious as it may look, the POD of a car is laden with some advanced communication and diagnostic (of car and driver) technologies, developed with Sony, that may become some hot selling features of future cars.

The DMT can be an office or workshop on wheels.

The DMT, short for Dual Mode Traveler, is a mobile office and living quarters in one. Based on the Japanese/European-market Estima minivan platform powered by the economical 2.4-L inline four-cylinder engine (a 3.0-L V6 hypothetically optional), the large vehicle—4850 mm (191 in) long and 1825 mm (72 in) wide—allows the driver and front-seat passenger a commanding view ahead in a cockpit whose roof is more than 2 m (79 in) off the road, rather like a C130 military transport, with a lower cabin behind it.

The ist is a sedan-SUV crossover that seats four.

Crossover is the name of the game in attracting the ever elusive and diversifying youth. Toyota's joint project with GM, the Toyota Voltz (Matrix)/Pontiac Vibe, is one example, combing the virtues and charms of minivan, sedan, coupe, and SUV, according to Toyota. Now the company is launching two crossover vehicles, still labeled "reference models," for the Japanese market. One is the ist, as in optimist and egoist, expressing the vehicle's individuality. Coming from the mainstream Toyota R&D apparatus, it is a cross between a small SUV and a station wagon, based on the B-segment (Echo) platform, and powered by the 1.3-L inline four driving the front wheels. The other is the WiLL VC, the third vehicle from the Tokyo-based skunk works, on the same architecture but with an equally individualistic body style. The car is equipped with Toyota's new-generation network service called G-Book, which includes a voice-recognition navigation system and information download capability.

The WiLL VC, the third model from Toyota's skunk works, is likely to be in limited production.

By far the most significant technology from Toyota is the FCHV-5, the latest in the company's experimental fuel-cell hybrid vehicle line. Toyota emphasizes the hybrid part, as the FCHV series has always had and will have a secondary storage battery, whereas GM has made it known that it is dispensing with one. The FCHV-5 is, according to Toyota, a running vehicle, equipped with a CHF (clean hydrocarbon fuel, referring to a cleaner variant of gasoline not yet commercially available) reformer that separates hydrogen and feeds the fuel-cell stack, which, again, is of Toyota's own design and construction.

The FCHV-5 fifth-generation fuel-cell hybrid from Toyota gets its hydrogen from "clean hydrocarbon (gasoline)."

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