Through the efforts of Toyota, almost the entire official fleet of the 2020 Olympics will be electrified.
The Olympics and Paralympics will be held in Tokyo next year, and official fleet supplier Toyota is planning a massive deployment of battery-powered and hydrogen-powered vehicles, as well as hybrids. The automaker says it will provide "3,700 mobile products and vehicles" for the Olympics, 90% of which will be "electrified".
Vehicles will be of all shapes and sizes - cars, buses, minibuses, scooters, mopeds, etc. Toyota sees the Olympics as a great opportunity to showcase its line of experimental alternative fuel vehicles.
Toyota pioneered alternative propulsion vehicles with the introduction of the hybrid Prius in 1997. However, since then it has fallen behind in the race, noticeably losing ground to other automakers such as Tesla, GM and Nissan. For unknown reasons, the company has not yet been able to introduce a fully electric car to the market. And the Olympics can be a great way to show that Toyota still has unique developments in this area.
Thus, visitors to the Olympics will have the opportunity to see the e-Palette minibus and the Concept-i passenger car in action, which were previously presented only in the form of concepts. Toyota envisions the e-Palette to perform a variety of functions, such as transporting staff and athletes. At the same time, these vehicles will be completely autonomous, albeit with limited geography. As for the futuristic Concept-i, it will get the role of an escort car for marathons and even the Olympic torch relay.
And, of course, there will be scooters of all shapes and sizes. Toyota plans produce 300 electric scooters, as well as an unspecified number of "personal vehicles with seats and wheelchairs."
