Tideland in Tokyo - 2019 Tokyo Motor Show

Well that’s a wrap. It’s, umm, a different auto show. Toyota had the biggest stand, taking up half a floor but there was only one van and one concept car on display. No production vehicles at all. I’ll report back once I gather my notes.

The weather didn’t help. The outdoor section and road tests were all cancelled

 

If it’s the one that was supposed to hit today, it was kept offshore by a different low pressure system. But that low brought copious amounts of rain anyway. (> 4”). I guess that’s still less than a typical typhoon?

 

Yeah yesterday was “just” 100mm or thereabouts.

 

Alright guys, here's what I got. It's my first time at the Tokyo Motor Show and I went as the general public (no media access here). The theme is "Open Future" so there were many displays on future mobility possibilities for all walks of life. It ranged from helping people older people walk to drone rescue vehicles for dangerous mountain rescue.

As such, there weren't actually that many vehicles on display given the size of the venue.

For @Scott Turner :



The MX-30 was on stage and off-limits. I'm making an educated guess that it's based off of the CX-30 (and eyeballing it, it looks like a "coupe" version of the CX-30. So given that, I'd say it looks to be about the size of the Gen 2 Prius actually.. maybe a bit taller and wider. The last two photos are a very rough measurement of the cargo area of the CX-30 that's on the floor. Given the MX-30's sloping hatch, I would imagine the height of the cargo area will be lower than the CX-30 so I only measured the depth and width. Again, this is very rough, using the iphone's Measure tool as I forgot to bring a measuring tape.

@royrose there were no Toyota vehicles on display other than concepts and two future production vehicles - the GranAce (which is for commercial use) and that ultra-small 2-seater BEV with 100km range (60 miles). I guess the LQ might be a future vehicle.

No info on the NX. The people on the floor weren't even aware of that November announcement when I asked about the "PHEV news". Guess the announcement was made at the media event the day before and perhaps wasn't passed to the people at the auto show.

@Salamander_King no info on TJ Cruiser - again the Toyota "booth" was all future tech so all those on the floor were just helping out at the various stations.

The Waku Spo was light on details - they were focused on the Harare and the Hustler (unless they talked about the Waku Spo first and I missed the beginning of the presentation). It's just a concept car for now so it's not representative of anything they have coming down the pipeline. All I know is that it can transform from a hardtop coupe to a wagon (as you've seen in the photos) and that the dashboard can also change from a simple layout (wagon mode) to a sport layout (coupe mode) where the dashboard wood trim slides away and reveals more dials and information for sporty driving.

 

Other auto show notes

• The LF-30 concept had a "solid state" badge on the rocker panel and showed off "Lexus rapid wireless charger" (Basically some sort of wireless charging for the battery). Again, everything is just a concept and shows where Lexus wants to go with BEVs. In keeping with the future of mobility, the LF-30 comes with a drone to help load luggage into your trunk
• The Mercedes EQ-S was on display and looked pretty cool
• The EQC was on display and was accessible. It looks slightly bigger than a GLC and definitely smaller than a GLE. the interior looks good and it's a good first effort on Mercedes for a long range EV.
• Subaru had the Forester e-Boxer and XV e-Boxer (Crosstrek to us) on display. They're just mild hybrid options with a small bump in fuel economy.
• Suzuki had lots of vehicles on the display. Most had mild hybrid options, even the kei cars
• Nissan had the LEAF on the display as well as the Note e-Power and Serena e-Power. The Ariya concept was on the stage previewing Nissan's next gen EV. It features ProPilot 2.0 (will be first offered on the Skyline aka Q50 in the US in Japan first) as well as remote parking (e.g. Tesla Summon or BMW Remote Parking Assist) as well as smartphone remote connectivity.
• The Honda Fit looked good and I like the "Home" model - it had a nice bright interior (light grey) with a nice cloth/leatherette interior (not cheap cloth that's typically found in subcompact cars).
  
• I was disappointed at the lack of actual vehicles on display. The future tech is cool and all and I enjoyed it but I was also hoping to check out more of the vehicles, especially those we don't get in Japan. Only Suzuki, Nissan, Mazda, MB and Honda had a decent number of vehicles on display. Lexus had a handful.

Other Japan notes

• Lots of hybrids in Japan - basically if it's a newer car (say within the last 5 years), it's most likely a hybrid from Toyota, Honda or Nissan
• Not a lot of EVs - saw a few LEAFs and that's about it. No Teslas, no Konas, no I-Pace etc

 

Supposedly but Europe and Japan are probably their main markets. If it comes to NA, it needs a larger battery.

what ever do you mean? Haha

 

well it’s just a fanciful concept for now. I’m sure they’ll work out the details if they do put it into production.

Ok maybe luggage was a poor choice. Basically anything you want to put into the trunk.