Toyota i-Unit

[Manfred M]

Another shot taken at the Toyota Motor Corporation Headquarters in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. This is the i-Unit transporter.

[Donald]

But where do you stow the camera gear?

[Shadowman]

Nicely exposed.

[tbob]

Would be great to see this sort of thing developed for the disabled. With units that bring people up to eye level (or higher to make a statement) plus three wheels in a triangle on an axle to climb stairs.

[Ziggy]

Agree with John about the exposure.

Wonder if runs.

[Manfred M]

Would be great to see this sort of thing developed for the disabled. With units that bring people up to eye level (or higher to make a statement) plus three wheels in a triangle on an axle to climb stairs.

I has similar thoughts, Trevor.

A bit hard to believe, but these units are over 10 years old. Toyota R&D has some internal design projects looking at different future needs and 10 of these were built for the 2005 World's Fair in Aichi, Japan. Toyota's Head Office and half of its Japanese plants are in Aichi Prefecture.

The concept here was a vehicle that would be useful for both high speed and low speed transport, and the vehicle re-configures itself between both modes. Here one i-Unit is in the horizontal high speed configuration and the other is in the vertical low speed configuration.

The specs on the unit can be found here: http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/04/1203_1e.html




Lack of cargo space and environmental protections are two criticisms of the design...

[IzzieK]

Might find good use around smaller tourisy townships and at airports instead of using a golf cart, which most use for transport just going around...when I saw the first one, I was thinking of it as an inverted sedgeway but no...this is a sit-down version...too far off...

[bnnrcn]

I like the composition and colors a lot in #1