Toyota Safety DAY with some Lexus LS460 Taste, HDTV
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Today Toyota conveyed the press to the Fuji Speedway in order to show their latest innovations in terms of safety with the "Integrated Safety Management Concept".
So we found ourselves in a very friendly environment on one of the most prestigious race tracks in Japan and with one thing in mind… pushing the cars to the limit!
Toyota was actually so confident about their safety system that we felt like the challenge was to try to crash the cars!
The Toyota menu of the day was called: "Integrated Safety Management Concept", and covered various aspects such as:
These aspects are considered by Toyota as the backbone of automotive safety.
It is important to note that, less than 1 month from official launching of the Lexus IS460 in Japan, this event was also a way to remind that their latest bomb will be one of the safest car available on the market.
Toyota organised 6 different workouts where we could test and appreciate their work in both active and passive safety.
1) Rear-End Pre-Crash Safety System.
Already available on the Toyota Harrier (Lexus RX), the Rear-End Pre-Crash Safety System, is designed to reduce head and neck shocks in the case of accidents or collisions. To help achieving this, a "Millimeter Wave Radar" installed in the rear bumper will automatically start the GAP LESS Head Rest in the front seats support heads, their role being to minimize the gap between your head and the support.
2) Adaptive Cruise Control.
The Cruise control or guardian angel of your driver’s license was so far limited to just one function: keeping a certain speed. The Adaptive Cruise Control goes way further as it is now possible to adapt speed to the environment by modifying the cruising speed or even stopping the vehicle if necessary.
3) VDIM, VSC, ABS, TSC, ASC…
In this we had the opportunity to test various vehicles in snowy conditions (simulation), the cars had different levels of equipment, first the ABS, then ABS+VSC and finally, as featured on the IS460: the VDIM = Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management, which regroups all the safety secutity systems such as ABS, VSC, TSC, ASC…
In the case of a car only equiped with ABS and a casual driver, keeping control of the vehicle at speeds over 40km/h is almost impossible.Equiped with the VDIM the car is surprisingly stable, at same speed and in the same conditions it is possible to control the car with one hand on a snowy road.The car simply won’t lose traction and regulates the acceleration.
4) Intelligent Parking Assist
The Intelligent Parking Assist is nothing new and can be found on many other models. But here, Toyota yet improved things making its system even better, while before you had to choose the desired spot to park your car, the New Intelligent Parking Assist is “smart” enough to do it on its own and all you will have to do is confirm or not the choices of the main computer.
5) Lane Keeping Assist.
Being able to keep control of the vehicle in cases of emergency and even trying to avoid obstacles is always highly hazardous and dangerous. Toyota with their Lane Keeping Assist, allows any driver to master his car in the most extreme conditions.
6) Distance Warning & Driver Condition
Keeping the driver vigilant and alert is an important factor in terms of road safety. Toyota answers with various alert systems, "Millimeter Wave Radar" and camera surveillant are capable of warning the driver of an imminent danger and assist him if needed.
Mr. Katsuaki Watanabe, President of Toyota, expressed, during the opening speech, his company’s will to propose safer and crash free vehicles.
Even though today this remains almost impossible, Toyota is working hard in order to get closer to that goal.
Furthermore Mr. Watanabe was conscient that, despite making all these efforts, a tremendous work must also be done to educate actual and future drivers in each country.
We have to admit that what we have tested today represents an important step in road safety, even more important thing is that the technology is ready and accessible, for example with the new IS460, available in the near future in Japan(in about 1 month).
We have been highly impressed by the VDIM and the Lane Keeping Assist, those systems help keeping the car safe and stable in extreme conditions like a snowy road and with excessive speed. But this is just the beginning, Toyota is working with some local areas in Japan on a better and smarter integration of these security systems in which the various elements that are part of our streets, roads and highways would be able to communicate with the cars going along.
The thing is that, even though we have to congratulate Toyota for these efforts, some questions remain unanswered.
While our cars are getting more and more “intelligents”, can the abundance of assistances tend to make drivers more “passive” or less alert?
In a time where computer viruses are all over the internet, what are the risks for the future owners of these networked vehicles in which electronics are taking a constantly growing place?
Toyota Safety DAY with some Lexus LS460 Taste
