Safety, New Fuels Drive Technology at Auto Show : Transportation: Offerings at biannual Tokyo event reveal that Japanese and U.S. firms are moving in same direction.
Mazda Motor Corp. is showing off its clean-burning hydrogen-powered car. Mitsubishi is showcasing an environmentally friendly auto that is powered by batteries for city driving and a gasoline engine for the open road.
Dazzling new safety features draw attention to other vehicles--made by Japanese as well as American auto makers--on display through Friday at the 30th Tokyo Motor Show.
Indeed, that both the Japanese and American manufacturers seem to be going in the same direction may be the most striking aspect of the biannual auto show.
To the surprise of some observers, the Japanese, who have been struggling with the impact of a worldwide recession, a strong yen and smarter competition from the Americans, show no inclination to stray far from the pack.
“This show is a very interesting one from the standpoint that the Japanese auto industry really did not produce anything that suggested they were offering a new direction to explain what their competitive advantage would be in the future,” Maryann Keller, managing director at New York brokerage Furman Selz, said while attending the show.
All of the world’s auto makers see safety and sensitivity to the environment as necessary to compete, she noted. For one thing, governments are mandating new environmental standards. California--a crucial market--is requiring that by 1998, 2% of cars and trucks produced for sale in the state have zero emissions.
Makio Sakurazawa, managing editor of the independent monthly trade journal Japan Automotive News, said Japanese manufacturers will meet the standard not only to sell cars in California, but also “to avoid the negative image of not being able to sell.”
Said Keller: “It’s hard for me to see (environment and safety) as a competitive advantage that will be uniquely Japan’s.”
The motor show indicates that recent slow sales and poor profits have taken their toll on Japanese firms, she said. “As I walked through the halls, I felt that the weight of poor car sales was very definite in the atmosphere in the exhibition hall.”
Japanese auto makers had a price advantage in the 1970s and a “design and technology” advantage in the 1980s, but now they are “just sort of muddling along,” said Peter Boardman, an auto analyst with UBS Securities in Tokyo.
“Maybe the environmental aspect will be the selling point for them in the 1990s. It’s too early to say.”
This show’s focus on environment and safety is markedly different from past Tokyo shows, which featured “dazzling displays of new cars, especially sports cars and luxury cars,” Keller said.
The show has plenty of electric car prototypes--the only current technology that would meet the California standard. Toyota’s nod to the environment is low-emission compressed natural-gas and liquefied petroleum gas engines.
The flashiest prototypes feature technology that is still years away from widespread commercialization.
The Mazda HR-X2, powered by a rotary engine that burns hydrogen, is one highlight of the show. The vehicle, which emits water vapor as exhaust, falls short of being entirely pollutant-free, because some engine lubricants burn along with the hydrogen fuel. But it is far cleaner than gasoline-powered cars.
Mazda is a recognized leader in developing hydrogen engines. But a host of problems remain to be solved, including cost-effectiveness and adjustments for the weight of the full fuel tank.
There are also safety questions to be resolved, given that hydrogen is highly explosive.
On the safety front, American manufacturers at the show are touting night vision systems--developed from military technology--that track thermal energy to spot pedestrians or animals otherwise invisible in the darkness.
Some American prototypes at the show feature collision avoidance radar that is already beginning to find commercial applications. Laser radar scanning that detects obstacles, triggers a warning to the driver and then throws the engine from fourth into third gear has been available as an option on the Mitsubishi Debonair since last October.
“There have been radar systems on the front of cars, experimentally, for I suppose 15 or 20 years,” said Thomas W. Evernham, senior vice president for engineering, research and development at Delco Electronics Corp., a division of General Motors Corp.’s Hughes Aircraft subsidiary. “But those things have been technical curiosities and are nowhere near what we are describing today, which is an interactive dynamic system that works.”
One of Delco’s goals, he said, is to commercialize Hughes’ military technology, including night vision equipment and radar signal processing.
Two key questions on the minds of auto makers are: What do car buyers mean when they say they want safety? And how well will they be able to adjust to new technology?
“The consumer marketplace tells us that they want cars that are safer,” Evernham said. “Safe means a very broad range of things--safe from the standpoint of crash-worthiness and security from the standpoint of theft prevention. But going well beyond that, I think we’re going to see the demands emerge even stronger for cars that don’t collide, for cars that aren’t a target to be stolen.”
Some researchers say they are worried about just how well people will adjust to all the things cars should eventually be able to do for them.
Automatic braking, for example, may sometimes be a mixed blessing, said Yasuo Nakajima, general manager of research at Nissan Motor Co., which is displaying the Nissan AQ-X and Nissan AP-X cars that feature radar collision prevention and automatic braking.
“The more we add safety devices, the more people lose their safety consciousness,” Nakajima said. “The more that cars are made safe, the faster people want to drive. . . . There needs to be progress in people’s consciousness to go along with this kind of new technology.”
