2007 Tokyo Motor Show: Toyota i-REAL
Toyota i-REAL – looks more like a wheelchair, don’t you think? It is like quite more than the coolest wheelchair ever built. Actually, it is Toyota’s “next stage” of its “personal mobility vehicle development”. An article in edmunds.com say, “It follows an evolutionary path trod by such Toyota concepts as the PM, i-unit and i-swing, but if you study the company’s global Web site, it also seems to have links to its growing ‘robot partner’ army.”
The i-REAL is made of lightweight carbon fiber reinforced plastic. It features operating controls in the side arm rests rather than offering a steering wheel. It is even capable of running up to 18.6 miles per hour.
Toyota said that the i-REAL shortens its wheelbase in low-speed mode to squeeze between pedestrians. It then lengthens its wheelbase in high-speed mode to give the vehicle a lower center of gravity and “better driving performance”. For that, the three-wheel i-REAL is said to be a masterpiece of transformation.
Toyota provided the i-REAL with collision avoidance technology to alert pedestrians to its whereabouts through light and sound. It also alerts the driver to passers-by via noise and vibrations.
Sadly, those are only the ones revealed up to date. For sure, it doesn’t have any Volvo car bras or others of the same kind. Anyways, we have to wait for the 40th Tokyo Motor Show to know more about the vehicle. And, that would be on October 27 until November 11. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait months to satisfy our excitement, just a few more days and there it is.
