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Toyota - Keeping It Clean
The Australian-designed and built Toyota Sportivo Coupe on show at the main Design Dome of Toyota’s multimillion-dollar technical centre in Toyota City, Aichi
The future of motoring
Toyota Australia’s Sportivo Coupe was the first pure concept car
produced by a major Australian carmaker in more than three decades – and it went from concept to reality in just 30 weeks.
Toyota Australia is almost unique in the Toyota world outside Japan in having the capacity to design, engineer, test and manufacture a complete car from scratch.
The Sportivo Coupe was created by a young but experienced design team at Toyota Style Australia, headed by 29 year-old Nick Hogios.
It included input from 14 to 18-year-olds, and many of the electronic systems developed for the Sportivo Coupe reflect the way young people live and how they accept personal responsibility as drivers. An innovative electronic speedometer relies on signals from speed advisory signs to display the speed limit at all times in the car, with the speedo re-configuring itself with the new limit positioned at the 12 o’clock position for instant and easy visual reference. Mobile telephone and GPS technology enables driver and passengers to keep in touch and meet with friends via portable touch-screen tablets.
The Sportivo was designed entirely by CAD (Computer Aided Design) and went straight from CAD to prototype tooling, bypassing industry-standard clay models.
“This car was all about breaking the mould for Toyota Australia,” project manager Rob Allen said. “We felt that if we were going to look at younger people, we would focus on a group that was yet to emerge as car owners, but who would be influential in the future.
“We also wanted to grow the expertise of Toyota Australia engineers and designers, so it was very important to bring together the total resources of Toyota and its key suppliers to achieve a program of this complexity.”
Environmental sustainability is a core business philosophy for Toyota, and has been embraced in Australia. Toyota Australia has been awarded for its role in proving that environmental sustainability is compatible with manufacturing efficiency and quality – both of which are among the best in the Toyota world. Toyota believes that the automobile has no future without a high level of response to environmental concerns.
In 2004 Toyota Australia’s efforts were recognised with the ‘United Nations Association of Australia Business Enterprise – Environmental Best Practice Program’ award for its entry, ‘Toyota’s Progress Towards a Sustainable Future’. This follows a UNAA award the previous year for Excellence in Water Management.
With the introduction in 2002 of a new Camry model at its Altona plant in Melbourne, Toyota Australia conducted a thorough audit of its environmental performance and set targets for improvements across the board. Within a year, it had achieved dramatic reductions:
- a 28% reduction in waste sent to landfill;
- energy consumption reduced by 15%;
- reduction of Volatile Organic Compound emissions by 19%; and
- water consumption reduced by 18% (a cumulative saving of some 369 million litres over a five-year period).
Toyota Australia is also involved in numerous environmental activities, such as National Tree Day (planting more than eight million native trees in five years), a partnership with Conservation Volunteers Australia, and support for the Phillip Island Nature Park.
Even the company’s new corporate headquarters in Port Melbourne, which was opened in July 2004, incorporates state-of-the-art sustainable design features.
“At Toyota, we have adopted the view that the only companies with a long-term future are those that address issues related to environmental sustainability,” says Toyota Australian Executive Chairman John Conomos. “In Australia we are developing a whole-of-company approach to environmental management, including our parts components suppliers and our national dealer network. It is not just an important part of our business – it is a core business.”
Community Spirit
With the Australian pavilion mascot being the platypus, it is appropriate that the first conservation project conducted under a new Toyota Australia initiative was the restoration of a platypus habitat in Melbourne.
Toyota’s new Australian HQ is a state-of-the-art environmental building
Under the banner of Toyota Community Spirit, Toyota Australia’s corporate citizenship program, the company began working closely with Australia’s largest practical conservation organisation, Conservation Volunteers Australia.
Beginning in 2002, this partnership began working on local environment projects, many in the Altona district of Melbourne where Toyota’s manufacturing plant is based.
In 2004 the partnership initiated Conservation Connect, a unique and effective program that coordinates volunteers with more than 2000 environmental projects Australia-wide, including the Darebin Creek platypus habitat where the program was launched.
