Although Toyota is betting big on hydrogen vehicles, the Japanese automaker seems to be slowly warming up to electric vehicles as an alternative to broaden its lineup of zero-emission cars. Owners could later share their design idea on an online discussion board, which makes complete sense given Generation Z’s propensity for socializing online. After all, they’re growing up and will one day have wads of cash to spend on vehicles.
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Moving inside we find a highly versatile setting with reconfigurable and removable seats which are mounted on sliding tracks.
Who’s to say a production vehicle like this wouldn’t become the Honda Element of the future?
Toyota’s latest offering to Gen-Z is this-the uBox concept-the result of a two year collaboration between Toyota Motor’s North American engineers and graduate students at Clemson University. It’s a design that both provides structure and allows more light into the uBox, making a more feasible office on the road.
The concept is born out of a collaboration between CU-ICAR and Toyota, called Deep Orange, and its goal is to give students hands-on experience through the entire vehicle development process.
As much an exercise in engineering as design, the uBox was built with a unique roof structure comprised of rails made from carbon fiber composite pultrusions bonded with aluminum.
Like many of today’s new concept cars, the Toyota uBox also opts for a green all-electric powertrain.
Toyota and Clemson University has joined forces in creating uBox, a concept vehicle ideal aimed at Generation Z, the next generation of auto buyers.
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“The roof pultrusion was something unexpected and very interesting when they first started talking about the concept”, said Toyota Executive Program Manager Craig Payne. The task, (referred to as Deep Orange) took 2 years, and was revealed recently at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress and Exposition located in Detroit. Inside the uBox, passengers can charge their electronic devices and other tools as it sports a 110-volt socket.
