Friday, June 27, 2014

‘Car of the Future’ Is Here. Now.






ASPEN, Colo., June 27, 2014 – Driving helps make lives safer, greener and more convenient at Toyota’s “Experience the Future of Mobility” exhibit, open now at the 2014 Aspen Ideas Festival. Toyota is staging the North American debut of its “Car of the Future” at the annual conference. Unveiled earlier this week at a press conference in Japan, the zero-emission hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV) will be available for sale to customers in California in summer 2015.

True to the Festival’s 2014 focus on imagining the future, the Toyota FCV is an important step forward for zero-emission vehicle technology. An electric-drive, mid-size, four-door sedan, the vehicle won’t require customers to compromise on safety, price or performance. Instead, the FCV will travel approximately 300 miles on a single fill-up of hydrogen, which takes less than five minutes.

In addition, Toyota is taking steps to ensure that owners of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be able to fill their tanks, no matter what brand is on the hood. In May, the company announced it had entered a financial relationship with FirstElement Fuels to support the long-term operation and maintenance of 19 new hydrogen refueling stations in California.

“Our society is on the cusp of a revolution in personal mobility,” said Osamu Nagata, President and CEO of Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America. “Slowly but surely, new technologies are changing how we think about automobiles and transportation -- from intelligent, automated systems that team up with drivers to improve safety, to zero-emission vehicles that emit nothing but water vapor. These technologies will help save lives, improve the environment, create jobs and help the U.S. maintain technical leadership in a field that is an important contributor to economic growth.”

Nagata will discuss the company’s vision for the future of mobility on the Festival’s main stage on June 28 during a one-on-one interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Financial Columnist, Editor-at-Large, New York Times; Co-anchor, CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Read more by following the link below.

Courtesy of Toyota Newsroom: http://toyota.us/1nQgByY