Toyota Sora is a Tokyo-Bound Hydrogen City Bus
Toyota is expanding its hydrogen vehicle operations with the introduction of the new Sora city bus.
The Sora (an acronym for sky, ocean, river, air) will be put into service in the Tokyo metropolitan area, with Toyota planning to send 100 of them to the Japanese capital before the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The company also plans to start commercial sales of the vehicle in 2018, but it’s not yet clear how or where the buses will be used.
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Set to be shown in concept form at the upcoming Tokyo Motor Show, the Sora uses the Toyota Fuel Cell System first introduced in the Mirai. It also features a variety of unique solutions apart from the powertrain, such as an acceleration control function (ever had your morning coffee spilled by a bus driver with a heavy foot?) and eight high definition exterior cameras that serve as a pedestrian detection system. The bus will also automatically follow the guiding lines on the road when pulling up to a stop, a feature called “automatic arrival control”, and will utilize vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure technology to aid in punctuality and safety.
The Toyota Sora bus will be present at the upcoming 2017 Tokyo Motor Show later this month. If it’s as successful as Toyota is hoping it will be, you may even see one ferrying people around in emissions-free style in your city one day soon.
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Sam McEachern holds a diploma in journalism from St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario, and has been covering the automotive industry for over 5 years. He conducts reviews and writes AutoGuide's news content. He's a die-hard motorsports fan with a passion for performance cars of all sorts.
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I'm all happy for the Toyota Sore, but they can add fender skirts to a regular bus