Toyota Motor Corporation President Cho Charts Course for 21st Century Mobility

    TOKYO--Oct. 24, 2001--At the 35th Tokyo Motor Show, opening this week, Toyota Motor Corporation's concept and production vehicles emphasize the environmental and information technologies that Toyota President Fujio Cho sees as driving car evolution in the 21st century.
    "The car is facing great changes in the 21st century, with the development of environmental technologies such as hybrid technology, and the continuing evolution of IT," says President Cho. "To change the car into a more environmentally friendly tool, and to make the car a more attractive item, it is very important to reach consensus in society," he adds.
    Cho sees the Tokyo Motor Show as a place to present Toyota's dreams for the future of mobility. "New technology evolves from a dream, and the evolution of technology produces more new dreams," he observes.
    As an example, Cho reflects that Toyota's dream for a hybrid car started in the 1970s as a way to take advantage of the potential of gas turbine engine technology. Although Toyota exhibited hybrid prototypes at the 21st and 22nd Tokyo Motor Shows (1975 and 1977), the technology puzzle did not come together to form a production vehicle until the introduction of the Prius in 1997.
    The formula of a dream combined with technology continues to deliver exciting and practical results for Toyota. At the 35th Tokyo Motor Show, Toyota's leadership in environmentally friendly solutions is reflected in the ES3 (e-s-cubic), a prototype diesel sedan which can go 100km on just 2.7 liters of diesel fuel. Toyota's Prius is now joined by two more gasoline-electric hybrids, the Estima Hybrid minivan and Crown Royal mild hybrid luxury sedan, both now sold in Japan. Toyota's fuel cell hybrid vehicles run on pure hydrogen (such as in the FCHV-4) or an intermediate fuel such as clean hydrocarbon fuel (CHF) which is "re-formed" to hydrogen on board the vehicle (FCHV-5). Toyota plans a limited introduction of an improved FCHV-4 -- now in public road tests in California and Japan--to the Japanese market in 2003. Information technology is applied in these hybrid vehicles' intelligent energy management systems, as well as in car navigation and telematics innovations such as Toyota's G-Book mobile information system featured in the WiLL VC concept car.
    "Toyota exists, thanks to its customers," Cho says. To this end, the company continues to pursue a flexible vision of sustainable transport and "total mobility services," while never forgetting that a car must be fun to drive.

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