Hachi-Roku Thursday: Toyota 86 To Let Drivers Download Data, Interact With Gran Turismo
Hachi-roku Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada credits his sons with giving him the impetus to develop this car. His sons are 24 and 27 now, they do not have a driver’s license and show no interest in cars. “They sit in front of the computer all day,” says Tada. “On Gran Turismo, they are better than their father. But they don`t want to drive.”
Tada tells how he took his boys to the racetracks since age 5 to awaken an interest in cars. It was a disaster, Tada admits:
“Manufacturers like to blame young people for having no interest in cars. Maybe we should blame ourselves. Manufacturers provided boring cars and focused on older people, because this is where the money is. We have abandoned young people.”
Creating new excitement for young people in an affordable car became the driving force behind the hachi-roku. Then, Tada had another idea. “I want to provide an interface between our car and their computer.” When Tada mentioned this to his sons, their eyes lit up.
Toyota, says Tada, developed an interface that makes CAN bus data available to a computer or game machine. Toyota has ditched all driving nannies on the hachi-roku, and pared down the electronics to what is legally mandated. But the car must have a CAN bus, and Tada wants to give the data to the driver. Not like a glorified data logger. Says Tada:
“People could load driving data into Gran Turismo and recreate the drive. We can combine the data with Google streetview. People could drive in the real world against a virtual F1 driver. They can have fun with the data.”
Hachi-roku owners can do whatever they or developers come up with, because Tada wants to publish the specs.
A patent for that interface has been applied for, and as mentioned before, the gizmo “should be ready to buy by August 6th.”
I requested an advance copy and will keep you posted. I better buy Gran Turismo.
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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"Manufacturers provided boring cars and focused on older people, because this is where the money is. We have abandoned young people" That explain why moidern compacts are so boring, nutty styling on the outside to attract kids, dulled up driving for the elders.
Kids often do their best to differentiate from their parents. Neither of my parents cared much for cars. They liked music. Among their three children, they only got one musician, and he went back to it only just before both parents checked out. They did get a grandchild musician, but didn't live long enough to see that. They would have liked three tennis players, too, but they didn't get that, either.