Today Toyota announced its participation in the "ITS-Safety 2010" trials. Earlier this week Mazda also announced they would participate:
"Toyota will use seven vehicles to demonstrate road-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-vehicle information-exchange technologies. Five units of the Lexus "LS460" will be used to demonstrate such technologies on roads in the Odaiba urban development area on the Tokyo waterfront and on the expressway servicing it, while one Lexus LS460 and a Toyota "Crown Hybrid" will demonstrate Radar Cruise Control with All-speed Tracking and Intelligent Parking Assist (with parking-space recognition) next to the area's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation."
Read more about Toyota's cooperative safety research on their ITS website
The Volvo XC60 has been heavily marketed as "The safest car in the world", now it seems Toyota does not like this marketing. The following is a rough translation of an article in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri (DI)
"Volvo calls their XC60 model the world's safest car. Toyota disagrees and now the Japanse car giant is suing Ford-owned Volvo in market court. According to Toyota Volvo's marketing for the XC60, where the company claims it is the worlds safest car, is false.
The Japanese car manufacturer says that there is no investigation that backs up Volvo's claim.
According to dagensmedia.se Toyota writes in the lawsuit: "Toyota brings to attention that there are cars in the world that are safer than the XC60 and Volvo cannot prove that their claim is correct. The marketing is thus not trustworthy, but false and misleading to the consumer."
Volvo has previously complained when Toyota marketed themselves as the safest car in Sweden which prompted Toyota to change their ads.
According to Volvo cars spokesman Bo Larsen Volvo is not planning to change their advertising. "It will be incredibly interesting to see if Toyota can show us a car that is safer, should there be a test", he says to dagensmedia.se"
The XC60 has been marketed with a high focus on the active safety systems it comes equipped with, in particular the "City Safety" function that assists in braking to avoid rear-end collisions with vehicles at low speeds. For an (slightly old) overview and motivation of the system check out the video below.
Read more about Toyota's cooperative safety research on their ITS website
