Toyota’s GB’s 50th birthday announcement it would launch the Mirai this September attracted a lot of interest on just-auto this week, as well it might.
Speaking at an event to mark its 50th anniversary of sales in the UK, Paul Van der Burgh, Toyota GB’s recently appointed MD & President, told us Mirai volumes would be small at first, just as they were when the automaker began sales of its Prius petrol-electric hybrid model here in the UK 15 years ago.
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“We know that sales will be small at first,” he said. “But we expect hydrogen technology to build towards major volumes by 2030.”
I’ve always admired the Japanese for their long-term view, reflected well in how they are still in Europe, despite at times struggling here or, as in Honda’s case, getting shafted by a past UK government after putting a lot of time and effort into the British Leyland/Rover relationship. How people laughed – when the Japanese export drive began in earnest in the 1960s – at cars like the ‘shovel nose’ Corona that kicked off TGB sales a half century ago. But. Brave early buyers liked the extras and build quality. You need local assembly? Here’s the kits and help for your local contractors and suppliers. Left hand drive? Here’s a proper job with wipers switched around, dashboards kept up to date. Problems with local fuel? We’re on it. Look at which automakers were around in 1965 and who aren’t today. The major Japanese are still with us, and with huge plants in many countries. Toyota put hybrid on everyday buyers’ maps. Will it achieve the same with FCVs?
M&A activity continues apace. Following last week’s news of Magna buying Getrag, we learned FCA is also dusting off family silver Magneti Marelli and considering a sale. We’ll see. And, late breaking this, Johnson Controls is spinning off its Automotive Experience unit (mostly interiors to you and me) as an independent, publicly traded company, while keeping buildings stuff and batteries (aka ‘energy storage’) for itself.
Connected cars are rarely out of the news now and we had a couple of stories this week. Firstly, maybe it’s time to update some international rules that date back to 1968? And, secondly, it’s nice for you to have control over your vehicle but what if hackers can also take control? Cue some hasty software updating. There was also news of Bosch working with Tom Tom to set new standards for digital mapping, saying mapping has to be top-notch before connected cars can be let loose on global roads by about 2020. We’ve all seen the newspaper reports of foreign lorries wedged in pcturesque English villages due partly to poor mapping; no one wants to be first to see their connected car pictured stuck in a ford.
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By GlobalDataFinally, there’s a bit of buzz today here in England as a local institution, the Financial Times, is snapped up by Japan’s Nikkei business daily. We also covered the purchase, by another Japanese company, of another, perhaps less well known English institution, the MIRA test complex. Say hello to Horiba MIRA. By coincidence, I was there this week to try Mitsubishi’s new line of L200 pickup trucks. Very impressive in MIRA gloop they were, too.
Have a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
