Visit to Toyota Museum & Plant

Tuesday for work I took a trip to Toyota City. First stop was the Toyota Museum, where you could stroll around and take a self-guided tour of Toyota products and the company's vision for the future.

All of the cars in the showroom and made and sold in Japan. I had no idea they had an actual large SUV they made and sold here!

I'll take one of each. Toyota racing

I've never seen this pick up truck around Nagoya, but the Japanese I was with said they do exist!!

Ultra-light weight concept car. I think it's missing some seats so you can see the structure of the materials rather than for saving weight! Goal is to make a car that's easy on resources, easy on the environment, and super safe.

School kids check out the Prius, and fill out their assignment sheet.

Notice many kids have masks on. This is common for kids and adults. I'm told by my American friends that I should wear one when I'm not feeling well. This helps prevent the spread of germs, and your co-workers really go easy on you because they know you must feel like crap!!

As the car states, it's a Plug-In!

Personal robot car that they suggest is going to change the way we think about mobility! There is a video demo at the bottom of the page.

Close-up of the personal robot car. The trim lights on the car change from purple to green to red :)

For all of my musical friends (Scholls!), here is a video of a Toyota Partner Robot playing Christmas carols! You must go directly to the blog to view it. I have no idea any of the other tricks he can do!

Finally, the video of the personal robot car! It has two positions. Upright, as shown, or the wheels spread apart, and the car kind of lays down. I have a video of it, too, but it is taking forever to upload today!

Second stop was a bus ride to the Tsutsumi plant for the once-a-day English-guided tour!

Even if you're not a fan of Toyota, some of the figures are mind boggling. It's now totally clear to me why the town's official name is Toyota City. For example:

There are 71,000 Toyota employees in all of Japan, and over half of them live in Toyota City.

There are 15 plants in Japan, and 10 of them are in Toyota City!

Here's some stats for just the Tsutsumi plant:

Nearly 12 million sq ft

6,000 employees

2 production lines make 2,000 vehicles a day (takt time = 57 seconds, for all of you Toyota nerds out there...)

They make 5 models on each line, including the Prius and Scion tC exports.