Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) announces the launch of the "Sora1," a fuel cell bus concept., to be shown at Tokyo Motor Show this year. The bus will be go into production in 2018.
The Sora, acronym for Sky-Ocean-River-Air, is powered by the Toyota Fuel Cell System (TFCS), which was developed for the Mirai fuel cell vehicle (FCV), adopted to deliver superior environmental performance with no CO2 emissions or Substances of Concern (SoC) emitted when in operation. The powertrain consists of two 114 kW fuel cell stacks and dual drive motors with 113 kW and 355 of torque, each one. On board there will be 10 hydrogen tanks with a capacity of 600 liters.
The Sora is also equipped with a high-capacity external power supply system, providing high output and a large capacity of electricity supply (9 kW maximum output, and electricity supply of 235 kWh2) and can be used as an emergency power source following disasters.
Because the bus is envisioned to be used by large and varying numbers of passengers at any given time, Toyota paid close attention to convenience, safety, and peace of mind with the aim to give all passengers a pleasant riding experience. The bus is equipped with horizontal seats with an automatic storage mechanism to provide space for strollers or wheelchairs.
Eight high-definition cameras fitted inside and outside the vehicle detect pedestrians and bicycles around the bus, providing a peripheral monitoring function that warns the driver with sound and images to improve safety.
Adoption of automatic arrival control detects the guidance line on the road surface and uses automatic steering and deceleration to stop the bus with approximately 3 to 6 cm of clearance from the bus stop, and within a range of 10 cm ahead of or behind the bus stop position. This improves boarding and exiting for passengers using strollers or wheelchairs.
Bus transportation capability, speed, punctuality, and convenience is boosted by ITS Connect, which utilizes vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications to support safe driving, together with systems that support bus convoys and that provide priority at traffic signals (PTPS5).
