Environment-friendly vehicles at the Tokyo Motor Show

The 43rd Tokyo Motor Show is the second in a row staging of this prestigious world biennial automotive event at the Tokyo Big Sight, located in Koto Ward, Tokyo, Japan and I still couldn’t get the hang of the venue. I still feel more comfortable and find it most convenient to engross myself in the different automobiles on display in its previous venue, the Makuhari Messe at neighboring Chiba Prefecture, where it has been held for two decades from 1989 to 2009. I started attending the Tokyo Motor Show in the early 90s when all you had to do at Makuhari Messe was to walk the long line of display booths from end to end and you would not miss any exhibitor. While here at the Tokyo Big Sight you would have to go front, back, left, right and up in order to get a complete view of all participating automotive companies.

With this year’s theme: Complete! And Shape a New Future, 180 brands of 177 firms from 12 countries participated in this 10-day motor show, which had November 20 to 21 exclusive to the media, with its official opening ceremonies and special preview day on November 22 and public viewing days from November 23 to December 1.

Japanese automobile companies participating include Toyota, Lexus, Honda, Mitsubishi, Isuzu, Nissan, Mazda, Subaru, Suzuki and Daihatsu while foreign exhibitors are Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Volkswagen, Citroen, Peugeot, Renault, Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo and Tesla. US carmakers General Motors, Chrysler and Ford Motor Company were “no shows” in the world automotive event organized by JAMA or the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Inc.

A total of 81 Japan Premiers and 76 World Premiers were lined up mostly of environmentally friendly next generation automobiles, with Toyota Motor Corporation showcased five concept vehicles under the slogan, “Fun to drive, again”.

Topping Toyota’s world premier is the Toyota FCV or Fuel Cell Vehicle Concept, a next generation fuel-cell vehicle that it hopes to be a pioneer in hydrogen-powered transport development when it would be launched in 2015, it has a driving range of 500 km (from Manila to Baguio City and back) with a refueling time similar to those of gasoline vehicles of as low as three minutes. 

Another world premier is the JPN Taxi Concept, which is geared toward the domestic hospitality industry. Toyota claims that a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) hybrid system optimized for taxi driving patterns will enable top-notched environmental performance.

Honda for its part has showcased the return of the Honda sport spirit by way of the Honda S660 Concept, a two-seat, open sports-type mini vehicle that can remind sports car fans of the Honda Beat originally introduced in 1991.

The other model is the NSX Concept, the next-generation super sports model, the successor to Honda’s NSX super sports car, which Honda stopped production of in December 2006.

Mitsubishi Motors has its own major share of environmentally friendly vehicles with its Mitsubishi GC-PHEV, which is a full size SUV with a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle system.

Tickets for the 43rd Tokyo Motor Show sell for 1,500 yen (about P750) for adults and 500 yen (P250) for senior high school students with juniors and below coming in free. This year’s target is to surpass last year’s attendance of 842,600 visitors.

We’ll be giving you our special coverage of some of the highlights of this year’s Tokyo Motor Show in a few weeks’ time on our TV program Auto Focus (Thursdays, 10pm HSN, Channel 13 Sky Cable Network) where we shall give you a glimpse of some of the concept automobiles that were on display. And for this opportunity to cover this prestigious auto industry event, STV (Sunshine Television) wishes to thank Toyota Motor Philippines and Honda Cars Philippines for having us in their media contingents. 

Happy Motoring!!!

For comments email [email protected].