Post Tagged with: "Japan"

Vehicle Manufacturers Are Leading Intelligent Transportation Systems Efforts with Obstacle Detection Systems Launching in 2009, According to ABI Research

March 31, 2009 at 11:41 am

(Source: Fox Business)

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have been under development for more than a decade. While the promise of road-infrastructure based traffic management is still years away, some car manufacturers are moving ahead with autonomous radar-based obstacle detection systems increasing the safety of both drivers and pedestrians.

“Vehicle manufacturers are mainly interested in active safety as a new differentiator,” says ABI Research Practice Director Dominique Bonte. “However, avoiding accidents has a huge impact on traffic congestion levels, the reduction of which remains the primary goal of ITS.”

Toyota is planning to add a millimeter-wave radar system to some of its car models in Japan in 2009. The driver is warned about potential side and front collisions and when a crash is imminent automatic braking, seat belt retraction and air bag deployments are initiated. In the US a similar pre-collision system will be available on the 2010 Toyota Prius as an option. A similar feature was announced by Hyundai at CES. However, the current automotive slump will delay the adoption of active safety as a standard option across all brands.

To realize the benefits of integrated traffic management ITS requires vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. While many successful tests based on the Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC: undefined, undefined, undefined%) protocol are ongoing in Japan (ITS-Safety 2010 project), Europe (ERTICO, CAR 2 CAR Communication Consortium) and the US (DoT’s IntelliDriveSM project), full rollout is not expected before 2015.

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REPORT: Japan’s Toyota City hurting as troubled economy, industry takes hold

March 23, 2009 at 5:37 pm

(Source: Autoblog; Photo: emrank@Flickr)

According to the Los Angeles Times, a town three hours southwest of Tokyo called Toyota City has gone from being the envy of Japan’s economy to the city with the country’s highest unemployment rate seemingly overnight. What happened? As its name implies, this town is comprised almost entirely of men and women who work for Toyota, the largest automaker in the world – the very same manufacturer that is facing its first year-long operating loss in company history.

 Because the city’s well-being rises and falls right along with the automaker that it is so dependent on, Toyota City’s finances are looking pretty dire for the upcoming year, with a projected drop in corporate tax collections of 96.3 percent. Interestingly, city officials have found an American analog with which to compare themselves: Detroit.
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Starting this week, Japan’s Bullet Trains to Get Wi-Fi

March 9, 2009 at 7:20 pm

(Source: CrunchGear via Gizmodo.com) 

Gizmodo says: 

From inside the train, users should enjoy speeds of 2Mbps even through tunnels, while those waiting at station concourses will be blessed with speeds up to 54Mbps (which happens to be the peak speed of wireless n routers, or about 6 times the speed of the only DSL service to offer wiring in my apartment building).

 

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Is Toyota the new GM? – Japanese Automaker Asks Government For Loans

March 3, 2009 at 4:00 pm

(Source: Forbes)

Automaker’s finance unit is believed to have requested $2 billion loan from Japanese state-backed bank.

3 month: TMToyota

Finding it difficult to raise money in the U.S., Toyota Motor is reportedly seeking emergency funding of about 200 billion yen ($2 billion) in dollars from a governmental institution in Japan to support its U.S. auto-financing operations.

Commercial banks have been cautious to grant loans amid the credit crunch, particularly to the slumping auto industry, and Toyota (nyse: TM – news –people ) and several of its financing affiliates have had their credit ratings reduced, hurting their ability to raise money on the capital markets. As a result, Toyota Financial Services, an auto-financing unit of Toyota Motor, is turning to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation as a last resort for low-interest dollar loans, various Japanese media reported Wednesday.

In response to the global financial turmoil, the government funded an emergency JBIC program late last year to provide loans and debt guarantees to help Japanese firms finance operations overseas.

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When we are talking of investing in high-speed rail, Japanese make a quantum leap, yet again

March 1, 2009 at 9:39 pm

(Source: TreeHugger)

The New N-700 Series Bullet Trains

While the U.S. is finally planning to spend some $8 billion to start thinking about high-speed rail services, Treehugger has noted that other countries are way ahead. Case in point: Japan is now extending its widely popular Shinkansen super-fast train network to the island of Kyushu, with new N700 Series trains from Hitachi and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. If you like fast trains, the N700 has a maximum speed of 300 km/h (185 mph). The video notes that these new trains are “ecology” and the N700 reduces power consumption by 19%.

shinkansen 500 700 japan photosakura shinkansen japan photo
Photo: Comparing the Shinkansen 500 and 700 series, from wikipedia           Photo: N700 Shinkansen from The Mainichi

The TGV and the Eurostar also clock in at around the same speeds. Tilting of up to one degree allows trains to maintain 270 km/h even on 2,500 m radius curves that usually has a maximum speed of 255 km/h.

Another feature of the N700 is that it accelerates quicker than other Shinkansen trains, with an acceration rate of 2.6 km/h/s. This enables it to reach 270 km/h in only three minutes.

Click here to read the entire article and to see the video of the new N-700 series trains.

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