Toyota Returns To Le Mans Racer Hybrid LMP1

It seems the Nürburgring record for a set of electric vehicles in August was only the beginning of the electric charge of Toyota in the world of motorsports.

Racing department of the company, Toyota Motorsport announced today that it will be 2012 World Endurance Championship, which for the first time, was organized as the FIA ​​and ACO, the club, which operates 24 hours of Le Mans race and the 'Intercontinental Le Mans Series.

Japanese company to develop a new, diesel-electric hybrid racer to compete in the top LMP1 class. The body is built to Toyota Motorsport in Cologne, Germany, headquarters, who previously served as its Formula 1 powder foundation for the hybrid drive is designed in Japan.

Head of Toyota Motor sports, Tadashi Yamashima, commented: "We have raced at Le Mans before, but using our hybrid technology, our participation in 2012 will be entirely new we want to make history of the Le Mans 24 Hours, as well as the FIA Endurance World Championship, using our hybrid technology .. "

To do this, races Toyota hybrids have to steal the show current winning Audi and Peugeot, both of which compete in the LMP1 category.

The Japanese automaker expects its new attack on Le Mans give better results than their lasta attempt in the late 90's, the GT One, which was fast but not fast enough to get a win.

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Toyota Invests in Safety, Demonstrates Hybrid Synthetic Sound Alert and More

Toyota has taken a lot of heat in the past couple of years over safety issues, especially in North America. But last January, the Japanese company announced that it will invest $50 million over five years in its Collaborative Research Safety Center (CRSC) to develop new safety technologies.

Recently, Toyota Motor Sales USA organized a Safety Seminar in which it displayed the technologies developed by the CRSC and its partners while also announcing plans to launch 10 new research initiatives with leading US universities and institutions.

One of the initiatives is a solution to the danger electric cars pose to pedestrians who will not hear them, since unlike conventional cars powered by internal combustion engines, they are silent.

Toyota's proposal is a synthetic motor sound alert that makes a humming sound that raises its pitch under acceleration and lowers it under braking, warning not only pedestrians but also bicyclists of the car’s presence on the road.

This system will equip the Prius line-up, the new RAV4 EV that was developed jointly with Tesla Motors, as well as other Toyota hybrids and EVs.

The Japanese manufacturer also demonstrated an autonomous-driving Lexus LS600h, which thanks to its advanced hardware and software, can detect pedestrians.

In addition, the company demonstrated a 35 mph head-on barrier crash test of its brand new Camry mid-size sedan, which sports 10 airbags and Toyota expects will earn top marks for safety both by the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) as well as the IIHS (Insurance Institure for Highway Safety).

“The CSRC intends to publish as much of the research of its partnerships as possible to make it available to federal agencies, the industry and academia”, said CSRC’s director and Toyota Technical Center’s senior executive engineer Chuck Gulash.

Story sources: Toyota & Motor Trend

 

 

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