TOKYO – Toyota’s high digitalization guru is touting large breakthroughs by means of the appliance of software program and connectivity providers, together with quicker product cycles and extra fuel-efficient automobiles.
A few of achievements will attain markets as early as this fall, when the second-generation Lexus NX arrives. The redesigned compact crossover will get over-the-air replace means, whereas the hybrid model has a predictive effectivity operate that helps optimize use of the battery.
Japan’s greatest automaker has about 3,000 individuals working in software program improvement at Toyota Motor Corp. and its know-how subsidiaries Woven Planet and Toyota Related, Chief Product Integration Officer Keiji Yamamoto mentioned in a Wednesday briefing. And throughout your entire Toyota Group, together with affiliated suppliers comparable to Denso and Aisin, there are 18,000 software program staff.
They’re ramping up Toyota’s dive into the digital age as automakers worldwide race to faucet a bunch of latest applied sciences that promise to make vehicles extra like smartphones.
Toyota has been gradual to supply over-the-air updates, as an illustration. Toyota solely launched its first autos able to over-the-air updates in February, the Lexus LS500h and Mirai gasoline cell sedan.
However that picks up tempo with the Lexus NX, which will get real-time updates of mapping and media.
In the meantime, the NX additionally comes geared up with a so-called Predictive Environment friendly Drive characteristic that leverages software program and connectivity to study an individual’s driving habits, predict the highway forward, analyze real-time visitors and optimize the charging and discharging of the hybrid battery.
The NX’s system previews a geofencing know-how that Toyota is growing to assist maximize the effectivity of the hybrid and plug-in hybrid autos, Yamamoto mentioned.
The thought is to foretell and monitor when a automobile will enter sure highway environments, comparable to metropolis facilities, the place battery drive ought to be prioritized. The automobile will sense this by means of the on-board connectivity techniques and routinely swap to electrical mode for a greener drive.
“The geofence know-how is a form of navigation know-how that makes use of the cloud,” Yamamoto mentioned. “That is underneath improvement, and we are going to commercialize it within the close to future.”