Sponsored post: Toyota lifts Grenoble into the future with i-Road
Toyota i-Road
Toyota has chosen the French town of Grenoble, a city famous for its visionary and innovative governance, for its first “Ha:mo” project outside Japan. Ha:mo is short for Harmonious Mobility and fits within Toyota’s overall future mobility vision, based on four pillars: safety, comfort, ease of use and ecology. Later this year Toyota will launch Citélib by Ha:mo in Grenoble, an innovative car-sharing service aimed at integrating within and optimising the combination of multiple means of transport. The main idea is to allow commuters to drive the first or last kilometres of their journey for increased flexibility and time-saving, thus contributing to reducing traffic congestion and improving air quality in city centres. In this way it differentiates itself from recent car-sharing services such as Autolib in Paris.
Citélib by Ha:mo is a “one way” short car-sharing service based on ultra-compact EVs, the Toyota i-Road, seen as an extension of public transportation networks. It aims to promote interconnectivity of public transport methods (trams, buses, trains), offering a new type of personal mobility using small vehicles that don’t take up as much space as a normal car. Indeed, recent surveys show that the average daily commute in Europe is around 45 minutes. Increasingly, commuters use public transport, but most of them still have to walk a good 15 minutes to reach their final destination. This is where the Toyota i-Road comes into play.
One scenario could be that during your tram ride, you visualise the available i-ROADs at your usual stop through the Citélib app, you reserve and pay. Another app can also allow you to see the status of traffic and public transport before you leave, so you can plan the best route that day. The Cité lib by Ha:mo is the result of combined work by five partners – The City of Grenoble, the state of France, its metropolitan area Grenoble-Alpes-Métropole, the energy company EDF and its affiliate Sodetrel, Toyota Motor Coporation and Cité Lib. The experimental service will be offered to residents of Grenoble for 3 years from October 1st 2014. It comes with a smartphone app not only confirming the availability of the station, charging status and reservation of EVs, but a route-planner with car-charging stations and itineraries within Grenoble.
But how is it really to drive the i-Road? Just like skiing really! The left and right front wheels move up and down independently synchronized in response to the driver’s steering, and the vehicle automatically selects the optimal lean angle when cornering. The ultra-compact i-Road is 870mm wide, enabling ease of handling in confined spaces and parking within a quarter of the space usually required for a normal car. As easy to use as a motorbike, but without fear of getting wet in the rain and no need to wear a helmet, the i-Road maintains balance – not the driver – and thus stability is maintained not only on curves but on slopes and over uneven surfaces. Plus, the i-Road is an EV and its Zero CO2 emissions make it completely environmentally friendly.
This post has been sponsored by Toyota, but concerns our own opinion.
