Gadgetory

hey guys this is Austin every year at CES we see a lot of tech in cars but no one really does it better than Toyota so when Toyota reached out and offered to sponsor a look at what they've got at the show I couldn't say no the biggest shiniest new toy is known as the TR IP 4 this is developed by Toyota's Research Institute and is built around the Lexus LS 500 H unlike most autonomous vehicles this actually looks cool yeah I know it's a revolutionary concept it's still heavily modified with things like lidar camera radar and much more but the most important thing is that Toyota is actually taking two approaches here their Guardian tech is about making driving safer with the person behind the wheel whereas chauffeur is all about full autonomy in almost any scenario now this is a big deal right autonomous vehicles are not ready for the mainstream just yet there's still a lot of work to do to bring fully driverless cars to the mainstream but Toyota is such a huge company and they span across so many areas that it's really interesting to take a look at some of their other investments I got the chance to co-host the Toyota untold podcast recently to get a better idea of how this all plays out yeah so Toyota AI ventures is Toyota's first dedicated venture capital fund and it's focused on investing in early-stage companies that are focusing on artificial intelligence data as applied to autonomous mobility and robotics many of the startups are defining what mobility means and so we are investing in those companies that are defining mobility another cool company here is main mobility now this is actually a company who has autonomous vehicles on the road right now in Detroit as well as Columbus and this is their next generation vehicle so this is a version that would have absolutely no driver so you can see in the front seat I'm actually facing back toward other passengers and as it has all these different sensors as the technology develops you can imagine a fully autonomous version of this vehicle unlike a lot of the vehicle stuff here at CES may mobility actually has these on the streets right now so it is a slightly different version and it does have a driver so in case there's any kind of issues but the idea is that this is the final format of what it will become hopefully in the next few years something you don't exactly see every day is a hydrogen powered truck so this is project portal it's a collaboration between Kenworth and Toyota it's a well let's take a look not quite like any truck you've seen or that I've seen this is where the magic happens there are six carbon fiber hydrogen tanks which were not to use the electric motor right behind it to pull a ton of cargo this is actually more powerful than a standard diesel truck so now I get to explore the truck it's maybe a questionable idea but this is really cool so it's interesting about this is it the truck chassis itself is not that different from a lot of others but there's a lot of special bespoke parts for this one for example there's MRI shifter here because why not what's cool about this is it actually is a proper truck too there is a full 300 miles of range and right now the prototype is actually at the port of LA bringing cargo back and forth all day so it's a really interesting idea of getting away from a standard electric or standard sort of diesel truck and into something that's just a little bit more high-tech by little I mean a lot hydrogen's pretty clear the days of a car company that just makes cars that will get you from point A to point B are quickly ending technology is rapidly changing things alternative fuels are rapidly changing things and the idea that you don't actually have to drive your car is a big big selling point so it is super interesting to see just how a Oda is taking advantage of this you're really becoming an all-new company