By Steve & Tamami Laser
Toyota’s new e-Palette concept vehicle introduced at CES® in Las Vegas is designed to deliver the goods for businesses on the move. The autonomous EV could serve as a mobile office, lab, or retail showroom, shuttle folks around town, and deliver pizzas to their homes. Toyota says Alliance launch partners Amazon, DiDi, Mazda, Pizza Hut and Uber will collaborate on vehicle planning, application concepts and vehicle verification activities.
The futuristic boxy styling for e-Palette provides roomy, stand-up space inside that can be outfitted to meet user needs. Toyota says e-Palette could be built in three sizes for specific applications and “right-sized, right-placed mobile solutions.”
The e-Palette concept reflects one of Toyota’s visions for “Automated Mobility as a Service” (Autono-MaaS) applications. It’s an automated, next-gen EV designed to be scalable and customizable for a range of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) businesses.
The new e-Palette Alliance is designed to optimize Toyota’s proprietary Mobility Services Platform (MSPF) and create a suite of connected mobility solutions on a flexible vehicle. Toyota says the new alliance will “create a broad-based ecosystem of hardware and software support designed to help a range of companies utilize advanced mobility technology to better serve customers.”
Working while traveling to a client in an e-Palette helps increase productivity (the vehicle drives itself). For example, a customer places an order for a unique product. An e-Palette outfitted like this “FabLab” (above), creates the product on-the-go and delivers it quickly.
Toyota says that with e-Palette’s open vehicle control interface and software, partners could install their own automated driving system and vehicle management technology.
A restaurant could use e-Palette as a mobile lounge to serve specialties on the go. It could shuttle customers to a transportation hub, drive them home, or take them to a theater. The Italian restaurant concept tickles our taste buds and so does the thought of a mobile sushi parlor or Pizza Hut.
Toyota plans to conduct feasibility testing for e-Palette in the early 2020s in regions including the U.S. It also plans to provide mobility solutions for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 with vehicles like e-Palette and others.
News source and photo courtesy of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp.
Additional photo (as noted) courtesy of Newspress
Story (commentary) © 2018 CarNichiWa.com