It wouldn't be long before Toyota
revealed another concept for the Toyko Motor Show.
The show car envisions a self-driving lounge space
powered by hydrogen fuel cells and individual hub motors. It's designed around
a diamond-shaped cabin layout that's widest around the passengers, tapered
towards the rear, and curved around the windshield.
As with so many forward-looking self-driving
concepts, the cabin setup is flexible. The bench at the back is fixed, but the
four captain's chairs can move around to transform from a layout you'd expect
to see in a minivan or crossover to that of a living room. There's also an
array of infotainment displays around the cabin to provide, in the
manufacturer's words, “additional value other than movement to the passengers
and is not simply just a 'ride.'”
With individual electric motors pushed to the
extremities, the vehicle is shorter in length (at under 16 feet) than a Sienna
but rides on a longer wheelbase. It's also about as wide, but sits lower. And
of course, with an unspecified hydrogen fuel cell powertrain, it's cleaner, too
– with a range of about 620 kilometers, a refueling time of just three minutes,
and not a single molecule of carbon emitted.