Toyota to set up R&D hub for electrified vehicles
The Japanese carmaker has earmarked 300 billion yen (2.2bn euros) to establish at new R&D centre and extensive testing grounds in Toyota’s home prefecture Aichi. Here Toyota wants to test green vehicles to comply with standards worldwide.
About 650 hectares of land has been secured for the project, reports Nikkei. Some facilities will open as early as next year while the whole complex is to be completed by 2023.
Toyota is planning eleven test tracks, modelled to reproduce various driving conditions around the world. A replica of the German Nurburgring is among them, to test the stability of steering, braking and other functions in harsh, that is fast, driving conditions. The 5.3km track will include artificial hills with serpentine-like curves and an altitude gap of some 75 meters.
Once the site will be in full swing, almost 4,000 employees from other Toyota locations will move to the facility that is near Nagoya. The test tracks will be the company’s first in Japan since opening a testing site in 1984 on Hokkaido, where winter testing will continue.
Toyota is moving fast on electrification lately and said it will bring more than 10 all-electric vehicles to the global market in the early 2020s. Battery investment is likely to exceed 11bn euros (1.5 trillion yen) through 2030 (we reported).
Toyota plans to make half of its sales electrified vehicles from 2030 while it also extends its battery development cooperation with Panasonic (we reported).
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