Toyota PM
Crowds thronged the Toyota stand to gawk at the PM-personal mobility—a single-person urban runabout with a podlike cabin covered by a transparent canopy. The cabin is isolated from the wheels and can assume three positions: high speed mode, with the cabin dropped back; city mode, where the cabin rises for better visibility; and entry/exit mode, where the cabin is upright.
Toyota PM
The PM's cabin rises to 73 inches and the canopy opens for entry and exit, while at freeway speeds, the cabin lowers to a height of 47.8 inches, which increases the overall length of the vehicle from 68.9 inches to 104.3 inches. Rather than gripping a conventional steering wheel, the driver's hands grasp an airplane-like drive controller to control acceleration, deceleration, and steering, and to rotate the vehicle on its vertical axis.
Toyota PM
Drivers of PM's can use telematics, including on-board camera phones, to communicate with each other, and the driver of one PM can lead a caravan of other PM's which can follow on auto-pilot. Each PM has an on-board computer to control handling, throttle, and braking in auto-pilot mode.
Toyota PM
The PM is just what we need—the technology to completely eliminate the need to drive from a generation of lemminglike drivers who'd rather be chatting and checking e-mail than watching the road, while still being mobile. Toyota will display a further evolution of the PM concept, the i-unit, at Expo 2005 Aichi, a futuristic global exposition, in March 2005.