TOYOTA

Toyota designs and makes Always Better Cars that excite and exhilarate our customers. Cars that help people to have cleaner, safer, less stressful and more connected lives. Leading the way on safety, quality, durability and environmental performance, our goal is to bring a smile to every customer’s face by putting people at the centre of Always Better Cars.

Globally, Toyota sells over 10 Million vehicles per year in more than 160 countries. We operate 69 manufacturing companies*,15 design and R&D centres and employ 350.000 people worldwide. (*includes wholly owned companies as well as joint ventures, KDs and contractual manufacturing)

About Toyota Motor Europe (TME):

We started sales back in 1963 and cover our regional area with 30 distributors across 53 countries.  We have invested over €9 billion since 1990 and have 9 manufacturing plants in 7 countries. Toyota Motor Europe has produced over 10 million vehicles in Europe and sold more than 25 million, including 1.5M Hybrid Vehicles. In total, we directly employ over 20,000 people across Europe.

TME R&D, Purchasing and Production Engineering operate from TME Technical Centre, located in Zaventem, Belgium.
We started our R&D activities back in 1970 with homologation and regulation departments.
After a steady increase of headcount and facilities, R&D now undertakes design functions such as body, powertrain, chassis and electronics, while material engineering and evaluation functions ensure that vehicles developed are matching European quality, performance and style requirements. We also carry out advanced technology research on batteries, robotics, Fuel Cell Electric vehicles, etc.

Main tasks in the project:

* WP1 – Determination of user’s perception and clarification of comfort and cabin energy requirements

TME will provide insight on customers’ BEV/PHEV energy usage and relate this to comfort requirements. This will lead to the identification of dominant user profiles & comfort needs. TME will investigate how specifically designed multi-sensory cabin environments can influence users’ perception of thermal comfort, and thus lower their acceptance threshold. Different factors will be tested and changes will be made in line with the comfort model.

* WP2 – Advanced cabin design and virtual assessment

TME will collaborate with other WP partners for novel cabin designs (user-centric approach).

* WP3 – Cabin Thermal insulation solution

TME will co-develop a permanent anti-fog coating with LIST (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology). The coating will be applied and evaluated on actual windshield. The purpose is to extend the battery range at extreme conditions by decreasing the usage of heater.

* WP5- Advanced systems, components and their control

TME will investigate HMI systems triggering energy saving behaviours (driving apps, intelligent ambient lighting systems and HVAC interfaces).

Website:
www.toyota-europe.com
Country:
Belgium / Europe