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Toyota building new R&D center, mini-Nurburgring included

By Andrew Hulse

LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 08: Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda speaks during a press event for CES 2018 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on January 8, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs from January 9-12 and features about 3,900 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to more than 170,000 attendees. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 08: Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda speaks during a press event for CES 2018 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on January 8, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs from January 9-12 and features about 3,900 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to more than 170,000 attendees. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) /
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Toyota, in an effort to bring more performance out of its new vehicles, is developing a 2.8 Billion dollar development center.  This will include a mini Nurburgring for both performance and durability.

Toyota has been planning on making a switch from traditional vehicles to alternative fuels and mobility for some time now.  This is evidenced in the commercials they aired what seemed like every couple minutes during the Olympics.  The focus is turning more and more towards making mobility easier for everyone.

However, this doesn’t fully discount cars, fortunately for us here at Art of Gears.  The new research center will also have elements of the Nurburgring built in.  It won’t be the full real-deal 12-mile track but it will take certain sections of the famed raceway.  Only 3 miles will be made in the image of the iconic track, meant to reproduce curvy mountains with high altitude variability.  The sections there will be specially selected to push Toyota’s newest offerings to their limit.

The facility will be located in the prefecture of Aichi, Toyotas home.  While the Nurburgring-esque track is very exciting, the whole facility is aimed at the companies green car initiative and will largely be the test center for hybrid and electric vehicles.  11 test tracks will be there in total.  All designed to test handling, braking and the durability of the car.

nurburgring
(Photo by Ker Robertson/Getty Images) /

This report is all coming to us from the Nikkei Asian Review who also reports the new center will have some buildings operational in the next year.  Full construction should finish by 2023 and it will cover a 1600 acre area.  There will also be 3000 some employees.

This represents a larger commitment to research by Toyota

Over the last 5 years, spending on research and development has grown 40%.  All of this is continuing Toyota’s commitment to hybrid tech.  The new site will focus not only on car performance but will also have resources devoted to maintaining regulatory compliance in all the markets.

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For the United States market, this means a heavy focus on autonomous vehicle tech.  This has become very popular in the US, I have not seen much excitement overseas about autonomous tech.  Toyota drove their newest self-driving platform to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  There have been many ethical questions surrounding the safety of self-driving cars.  Most of these questions revolve around who to save in an accident.  I, for one, am not a fan at all.

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