Toyota Employees Take Massive Five-Continent Road Trips To Test-Drive The New Super-Toyotas
Presented By Wingz – Scheduled Airport Rides
What is the best way to know how your vehicle technologies hold up in real-world conditions? Perhaps nothing is better than to be behind the steering wheel in several terrains. But what Toyota has been doing is even much more than that. They want the ultimate test drive ever!
The company has launched the Five Continents Driving Projects, whereby they send their engineers on epic road trips through varied terrain. As it’s launched in North America, the project is called the Ever-Better Expedition, which will “tackle some of the continent’s most challenging driving environments, from the summer heat of California’s Death Valley to the icy roads of an Alaskan winter, and from the steep ascent of Pikes Peak in Colorado to the urban congestion of New York City.”
Another leg of the mother campaign took place in Australia, where for 72 days and more than 12,500 miles, 50 engineers drove vehicles cross-country, taking on the diverse and rugged terrain of the outback.
https://youtu.be/X5F2PaHibCk
Although the purpose of this event is to gather new ideas to inspire future innovations, the team won’t likely be driving Camrys or Priuses, or even Highlanders, a famous off-road SUV of Toyota. Instead, the engineers have had a bit of pre-trip fun, creating customized vehicles that will serve as rolling test-beds for whatever the road may throw at them. For example, this bad-ass Sienna:
The North American challenge began last week. Here’s what they’re expecting to do on the 110-day, 16,500-mile trip:
We’ll keep updating you about this journey.
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