Want to see something really cool? As a member of the Toyota family, the Mills Toyota team loves seeing all of the amazing ideas the automaker has to make the future a smarter and cleaner place to live, and we want to share their latest innovation.
Every January, the Consumer Electronics Show descends upon the glittering lights of the Las Vegas Strip. Organized by the Consumer Technology Association, the show serves as a proving ground for inventors and a shopping place for investors. This year’s exhibitions included innovations from over 4000 different companies, including robotics, smart home gadgets, and green tech. Among all of the cutting-edge concepts, Toyota stood out with its vision of a mobile future.
Introducing the Toyota e-Palette
Toyota recognizes current trends in urban growth and anticipates a future in which most of the world’s population lives in urban centers. These cities already have a difficult problem on their hands dealing with congestion and pollution from all of the machinery needed to keep their people moving and working. In anticipation of this shift, Toyota sees itself becoming less of a manufacturing company and more of a mobility company, investing in the ride-sharing sector and developing autonomous vehicles. As a result, Toyota introduced the e-Palette concept to the crowd at this year’s CES.
Autonomous and Customizable
The e-Palette is a fully autonomous electric vehicle with endless potential for modifications. Essentially, the vehicle has two parts: an electrically-powered and computer-driven eight-wheeled mobile platform cradling a modular and customizable compartment on top. The compartments can be outfitted for various uses, including simple personal transport with comfortable seating, commercial cargo transport with specialized storage, or any other various needs from retailers and service providers. Individual riders or businesses can request and unlock these vehicles using simple smartphone apps and attach their own compartments to transport across town, making the e-Palette a blank slate for urban transportation.
The Future of Commerce
Even though this concept is still many years from commercial availability, Toyota is already working to make this dream a reality. Forming an alliance with retailers like Amazon, Pizza Hut, and Mazda, as well as ride-sharing disrupters Uber and its Chinese rival Didi Chuxing, Toyota knows it will take a community effort to build a solution that works for everyone. However, the drive to push this concept into the real world represents a real commitment from Toyota CEO Akia Toyoda. He plans to have working models ready to show off the e-Palette alongside other mobility solutions during the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
Mills Toyota can’t wait to see how this amazing innovation changes the way we get around, and we know you can’t either. To find out more, visit us or contact us and we’ll show you what Toyota can do for you today.
Image Credit: Toyota
