Toyota's Mystery Solar Car Finally Sees The Light. In The Nikkei
A week ago, AP cited an article in the Nikkei that wasn’t there. That article that didn’t exist was about an all solar car that didn’t exist. Under the headline “Toyota Secretly Developing Solar Powered Green Car” the AP “news” about the article and car that only existed in imagination was reprinted 164k times, as Google has it.
Not only had the original Nikkei article not been printed. TTAC’s B&B also opined that a solar powered car would be total bunk. “There is no way you are going to power anything like a conventional car on a normal duty cycle with only the PV modules on roof of the car,” wrote B&B RedStapler. He was not alone. WIRED wrote that “a chorus of online skeptics have begun dismissing reports that Toyota’s “top secret” solar concept would ever see the light of day.”
The story is getting stranger. Someone must have decided that if an article is reprinted 164k times, then it deserves the foundation it so sorely lacked. And so, today, the article that supposedly started it all miraculously and finally appeared in the Nikkei [sub]. It says: “The dream car, being tackled by engineers of Toyota’s Higashifuji Technical Center in the city of Susono, Shizuoka Prefecture, is neither a gasoline-electric hybrid nor a fossil-fuel car. It would be an ultimate ‘eco-car,’ running solely on solar energy,” says the Nikkei a bit belatedly.
Well, in the beginning, it will be nothing else than a Prius parked in a house with solar panels on the roof: “Initially, the car would run on electricity generated by solar panels installed at homes as well as on the vehicle itself,” says the Nikkei. And “then, when further streamlined, the auto would run on car-mounted solar panels alone. Eventually, solar panels would altogether replace the internal combustion engine.” The paper doesn’t elaborate how this miracle will be performed, but they know that Toyota will do the magic without outside help: “Not willing to depend on other companies for key technology, Toyota intends to manufacture the solar panels on its own.” The rest of the article doesn’t provide further insights. It prattles on about a robot that does household chores for the elderly, and monosodium glutamate that is marketed by a Japanese company to Africa. Apparently, the all solar car is seen as just as important.
The article ends: “Yet, chaos is also the mother of things new that belong to the new generation. According to the Greek myth, while all the troubles were brought into the world from the opened Pandora’s Box, only Elpis, or hope, remained in the box.” Elpis definitely has left the box. Not only is there a solar car, there is also a time machine: An article in the AP quotes an article in the Nikkei that is so futuristic that it appears a whole week later.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Sorry, didn't know that. But when I do Google the phrase with quotes and go fairly deep into it, I find that hundreds of the links are for the very same Huffington post, dunno why. I still find it inconceivable that there were 164,000 reprints of the AP piece.