Takeoff and cruise: Toyota making ‘flying car,’ luxury boat

Jun. 03, 2017

The test flight of what may develop in the future into a “flying car.”

TOYOTA, Japan (AP) – Toyota Motor Corp. is working on a “flying car.”

A startup backed by the Japanese automaker has developed a test model that engineers hope will eventually develop into a little car with a driver who’ll be able to light the Olympic torch in the two thousand twenty Tokyo games. For now, however, the project is a concoction of aluminum framing and eight propellers that scarcely gets off the ground and crashes after several seconds.

(AP Pohto/Yuri Kageyama)

Toyota has invested 42.Five million yen ($386,000) in startup Cartivator Resource Management to work on “Sky Drive .” At a test flight Saturday in the city where the automaker is based, the gadgetry, about the size of a car and loaded with batteries and sensors, blew up a lot of sand and made a lot of noise.

It managed to get up as high as eye level for several seconds before tilting and falling to the ground. Basketballs affixed to its bottom served as cushions. After several attempts, the endeavor had to be canceled after one of the covers got detached from the framework and broke, bruising the propellers.

Tsubasa Nakamura (left). (AP Photo/Koji Ueda)

The objective of Cartivator’s is to produce a seamless transition from driving to flight, like the world of “Back to the Future,” said the project’s leader Tsubasa Nakamura.

“I always loved planes and cars. And my longtime desire was to have a private vehicle that can fly and go many places,” he told The Associated Press.

An artist rendering of the “flying car.” (Photo Cartivator via AP)

The group is now working on a better design with the money from Toyota with the plan to have the very first manned flight in 2019. No one has ridden on Sky Drive yet, or any drone, as that would be too dangerous.

Still, dabbling in businesses other than cars is Toyota’s trademark. In latest years, it has been aggressively venturing into robotics and artificial intelligence, investing a billion dollars in a research and development company in Silicon Valley. It’s also working in Japan on using robotics to help the sick walk. It also just announced a five-year $35 million investment in its research center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for autonomous and connected vehicle technologies.

The idea that each generation must take up challenges is part of Toyota’s roots, said auto analyst Takaki Nakanishi.

President Akio Toyoda’s great-grandfather Sakichi Toyoda embarked out developing the loom and then its automated improvements from the 1890s, before the company became an automaker. More recently, Toyota sees software and services as central to the auto industry, as cars become connected, begin driving themselves and turn into lifestyle digital contraptions, Nakanishi said.

As Toyota gets into the business of ecological vehicles, such as hybrids, electrified cars and fuel cells, it’s turning into an energy company as well.

(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

“Toyota’s business is centered on mobility, anything that moves, including people, things, money, information, energy,” said Nakanishi.

Toyota is traveling not only in the skies but also to the waters, albeit that still remains a lil’ part of its sprawling empire.

Toyota’s boat operations began in 1997. Toyota now offers four models and has sold a cumulative eight hundred forty five boats. In contrast, Toyota sells about ten million vehicles a year around the world.

Reporters recently got a rail in Tokyo Bay of a Lexus luxury concept “yacht,” which runs on two gas engines. With a streamlined curvy design, inspired by a dolphin and evocative of a Lexus car, it’s being promised as a commercial product in the next few years.

Designed for executives zipping through resort waters, it comes with fantasy-evoking features, like an anchor pulled in by a chain into a lil’ door in the bow, which opens then closes mechanically.

The engine, shiny like a chrome sculpture, is visible underneath the sheer floor surface. Shigeki Tomoyama, the executive in charge, said the boat was going for “a liberating effect.” A price was not given. Many Americans have already voiced interest, according to Toyota.

Shigeki Tomoyama (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

The project commenced about two years ago under direct orders from Toyoda, who has with Tomoyama spearheaded Toyota’s Gazoo internet business, another non-auto business for Toyota.

“He asked us to create a space that can work as a secret hiding place in the middle of the ocean,” Tomoyama said. “We went for the wow factor, which requires no words.”

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