Japan’s Greatest (And Most Useless) Concept Cars Of The Future

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In 1904, Torao Yamaha produced Japan’s first domestically manufactured vehicle, a bus. It was steam powered and probably could turn into a mech suit. Soon after, in 1907, Komanosuke Uchiyama made Japan’s first gasoline engine car, called the Tokuri. By 1911, Japan had its very own car company, which eventually became Nissan Motors (I’m guessing you’ve heard of it).

Since then, Japan’s come a long way in the car making biz. Toyota has the most successful hybrid car on the market (seriously, like every other car I see nowadays is a Prius), Honda is well known for its good, reliable and smartly engineered cars, Nissan is paving the way in electric cars (I’m looking at you, Leaf), and Subaru is all nice and 4-wheel-drivey or something like that. All-in-all, Japan’s doing pretty well with the whole car thing and I only see Korea catching up to them in the somewhat near future.

Despite this, they’re not just sitting on their couches made of yen. All the Japanese car manufacturers have been coming up with concept cars. Cars of the FUTURE. While we may not see these cars anytime soon (or at all), I sure wouldn’t mind if I could jump into one of these sooner rather than later. Let’s take a look at the futtturrreee.

Modern Japanese Concept Cars

The cool thing about modern / recent concept cars is that there’s still the possibility of them showing up in the real world. They haven’t been forgotten or stashed away. There’s still that hope that one day you will be hitting the road in a sideways driving pivo or attracting aliens in your Mazda Kiyora. These are my favorite modern Japanese concept cars. Older cars your thing? Skip to the second half.

Nissan Nuvu

You can always count on Nissan to make a lot of weird looking concept cars. Out of all the car manufacturers, they’re the ones who consistently come up with the strangest ideas, and I gotta say, I like some of them. Like the Nuvu, for example.

The Nuvu is an electric car that runs on Lithium Ion batteries. On this battery, it can travel about 80 miles, which doesn’t seem too bad considering how small it is.

I really like the shape of this car for some reason. Seems like it gives the interior a lot more space despite being a really tiny car. It seats three people (comfortably 2), and has a nice pillar on the inside for some reason. I guess it’s supposed to be kind of like a tree? Or maybe an electricity whirlpool? You decide.

This concept was debuted in 2008, and I can definitely see some of its inspiration on the Nissan Leaf. Perhaps the leaf-shaped solar cells all over the roof was a bit of Leaf foreshadowing? I can only assume so. Still, I’d rather have one of these (with the Leaf’s travel distance, though, please). I like that pillar in the middle. Seems nice to hold on to while someone’s blazing down the freeway at this car’s 75mph max speed. VRrooom!

Mazda Kiyora

Can you guess what inspired this car’s design? Turns out it’s water. You can see how flowy it is (though I’m sure they’d recommend you don’t drive it into the ocean anytime soon).

Depending on how you read this, 清ら (きよら) means “elegant beauty” and the kanji itself, 清 means “clean/pure.” Either way, I think both make sense. Japan’s automakers are into an eco-friendly car future and Mazda’s the same. Personally, though, I’d be more into this car if it was a little bigger. Right now it feels a bit too small.

Nissan Pivo2

I remember seeing this car 5-6 years ago in Tokyo (on display somewhere, can’t remember where). Sure, it may look ridiculous, but did you know its wheels can turn sideways, completely destroying the need to parallel park? WHAT? You’d see a lot more teenagers passing their driving test if this car was mainstream, I think.

The inside is pretty interesting too. Completely changes how people normally think of the inside of a car. But did you know the wheels aren’t the only thing that can turn? The entire top carriage can rotate 180 degrees, meaning that you’ll never have to back out of a parking space again.

And, lastly, do you see that little robot in the dash? He talks to you and “keeps you company,” according to Nissan. How sweet… until he turns EVIL, of course. I’ll stick with my non-sentient car, thank you very much.

Honda FC Sport

I’m a big fan of Honda. I’ve owned two Hondas in my 9-year driving career, but after looking up their concept cars, I’m starting to feel a little old fashioned.

The Honda FC Sport is a concept hydrogen fuel cell car that doesn’t actually work. Really, it just looks pretty and sits around at auto shows, but does have some interesting things about it.

Since it’s hydrogen powered (or supposed to be), designers got to rethink the engine and how the entire car works, meaning they can put things in different places, add more space for other things, and really just do whatever they want. Although I doubt that hydrogen fuel cell technology is anywhere near ready for the masses, I’m hoping to see more of this kind of tech in the future.

Toyota CS&S

“Hello Mr. Bond. Nice car you have there…” Except you probably won’t see Bond driving a Toyota anytime soon. The CS&S for this car actually stands for “Compact Sports and Specialty” and uses the setup that powers the popular Prius.

If you look really closely, though, I would say that the bottom 2/3rds of this car resembles a lot of modern Toyota cars. This concept was shown in 2003, so there’s been a lot of time to steal bits and pieces from it. To be honest, though, I kind of like it. I don’t think I’d buy one, but I wouldn’t mind pretending I was interested so I could take a test-drive.

Honda “Small Hybrid Sports”

The whole idea behind this concept car reminds me of what Tesla’s trying to do, although this one’s a hybrid and not an electric car. Honda wanted to make a small sporty hybrid that isn’t boring to drive. Despite all the good intentions, though, it looks like Honda won’t be manufacturing this car. Sorry eco-friendly dudes looking to pick up some eco-friendly chicks, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Nissan Forum

Ever have that problem where you pick someone up from somewhere, then go to turn your head to look back, only to find that you no longer have a neck? This concept car solves that problem immaculately. The outside, while unique, isn’t all that strange. It’s the inside that makes this concept car great.

Actually, though, this minivan probably has children more in mind than anything else. There’s cameras that send a video feed of the backseat to overly suspicious parents (who obviously don’t care about not being distracted while driving their children around), entertainment systems for every seat, and swiveling middle chairs (RV, anyone?). This is about as fancy as it gets, soccer moms, so keep your eyes peeled for this car or Nissan vans that borrow tech from this car sometime in the future.

Toyota 1/X

Weighing in at 420kg, the Toyota 1/X is approximately half the weight of a Toyota Yaris (already a small car). Why? Because this car is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic. It’s a plugin hybrid that gets double the fuel efficiency because it’s half the weight. I guess that’s one way to do it, though I’m wondering how safe it is.

You probably won’t have to figure that out, though, because this car won’t be coming to the real world anytime soon (or ever). I wonder if we will see some carbon fiber cars though. Sounds interesting, though probably not something I’d want to have in America, where all cars are at least 23 times heavier than this one.

Honda P-Nut

The P-Nut (Personal Neo Urban Transport) reminds me of the Kiyora a bit. This Honda-designed concept was made to have a small eco-footprint and have great visibility (presumably to see all the trees you’re saving). The seats, as you can see, are also pretty interesting. The driver is in the middle at the front and the passengers are to the sides and back of the driver, meaning it seats three (but pretty comfortably). This car sort of reminds me of the Honda Fit, one of Hondas most popular models (if not the most popular right now). I like how the glass covers everything, though I imagine it’s a pain when they get dirty. Where are the windshield wipers??

Isuzu FC-12

In America, our buses are terrible. I hate them, lot. In fact, around most of the world, bus innovation has been lacking. So, it’s good to see Isuzu (which tends to do more big vehicle stuff, like trucks, buses, and so on) messing around with something like this. Although I’m not sure what they were thinking on this one (someone tell me, is this aerodynamic?) I like that it looks like some kind of robot bug from the future, so I’d get on / be eaten by one if I had the chance.

Nissan Land Glider

The Land Glider is a fully electric vehicle that… wait for it… leans into turns (kind of like a motorcycle). It’s meant to be driven around the city (so, maybe for your second car) and is full of futuristic insides. For example, the steering wheel isn’t actually attached to your wheels in any way (except via computers and wires). The Land Glider holds one person and is incredibly narrow.

If these started hitting the market I wonder how often you’d see people passing other cars by riding the lines on the road. I hate it when motorcyclists to that, freaks me out.

Whatever happens, I love this car’s interior. It’s like you get to drive a small, eco-friendly fighter jet around town. I don’t think I could stop making pew pew noises any time I drove this thing. Pew pew pew!

Japanese Concept Cars Of The Not-So-Distant Past

Although these modern concept cars and neat and all, there have been some really cool cars by these very same Japanese car manufacturers done a long time ago as well. In order to see where all this modern design came from, we have to look at some of the older stuff. Which era is more practical, I wonder? Here are some of my favorites.

Toyota EX-II (1969)

The EX-I was more of a normal car. This was it’s tiny, slower, electric powered little brother. I like how the little circular windows, though I don’t think I could handle how low to the ground it is.

Nissan Boga (1989)

The Boga was designed based off regular cars from the eighties, but tried to maximize interior space (and it shows). The doors would close automatically and the ventilation system was solar powered. To be honest, this is more advanced than most cars being released today, and I kind of like the design, despite how weird it is.

Mazda London Taxi (1993)

This was made with the Royal College of Art in London. It’s a taxi with only a single passenger seat because it was assuming that eventually London would create restrictions around being able to drive normal (bigger) cars. Although it’s hard to tell from this image, I’m guessing this car was tiny.

Honda Fuya-Jo (1999)

Isn’t 1999 a little too modern for a car like this? Fuya-Jo means “Sleepless City” – can you guess what type of person this car was targeting? That’s right, the party animal. It’s all about the excitement of the nightlife with this car… maybe? The dashboard resembles a DJ’s mixing desk and the steering wheel looks like a turntable. If a car like this doesn’t make you cool, I’m not sure what will.

Although tall, this car is low to the ground and is supposed to give youth the feeling of riding a skateboard, or something like that (so, I guess I’d be falling off this car all the time?). Despite the weird looks of this car and the turntable steering wheel, I kind of see where Honda was coming from on this one. Although this concept car was a big flop, you can see a lot of the good elements of the Fuya-Jo showing up in Totota’s Scion line. Boxy, low to the ground, square-shaped… I guess artists steal, right?

Toyota RV-2 (1972)

The RV-1? That’s so old school. The RV-2 is where the fun is at. Part sports car, part RV, and part transformer, this concept was attempting to capitalize on the popularity of campers. Just open up the back part and connect the pieces with (hopefully waterproof) fabric, and you’ve got yourself an RV… well, kind of.

For me, I’d just be too embarrassed to transform my car. I’ll just pack a tent in my trunk, thank you very much.

The Future Of Cars

It’s kind of interesting to look at all these concept cars and compare them to what actually happened. There’s a lot of bits and pieces taken from even the wackiest of cars, so you can’t discredit them totally.

It’s pretty obvious that Japanese cars are really heading towards even more eco-friendly vehicles. Totally electric is going to be the future, and I think we’ll see a lot of cars that only house one or two (or three, in several cases) people as well.

I’m also hoping for some drastic changes in car design. Cars are kind of boring, you know? Luckily, I think we’re starting to see a shift towards beauty in design rather than trying to make cars faster or more sleek or something else. Even the Prius was a big change back in the day, though now it’s pretty standard. New cars, like the Leaf, FJ-Cruiser, and plenty of cars you only see Japan are also quite different from normal car design standards, though I’d like to see more. I think if we can get out of the mindset of what a car looks like, we can come up with some pretty neat ideas. Not all of them will work, but I guess that’s why you have concept cars, ammiright?

So, what car was your favorite? Would you be caught dead driving any of these cars? For me, I think I like the P-Nut the best, though the Nissan Glide would be a sweet second-car.

[hr]

Did you know that there are way more Japanese concept cars than this? Like, a lot more. Check out Pink Tentacle and Japanese Concept Cars for way more. The ones above are just my favorites (and hopefully yours too?).

  • Vayshti

    Carbon fibre cars that are road legal have been made at the high end of the market since about 2005? This one, for example hit the market in 2007: 
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zonda_R_Front_1.jpg

  • http://www.facebook.com/KariOkamoto Carly Rose Chonbubzkevnigpuff

    The old cars were thought up before I was even born XD 

  • Mescale

    I miss the days when cars were brown, these days they are all metallic silver. Brown cars, that’s a concept I could get on board.

  • Paladin341

    I really liked the design on the Mazda Kiyora; the wheels looked like fan blades and the front part of the car kind of reminded me of fish whiskers for some reason.  So I can feel that water-esque theme they were going for.

    Also in Japan, owning and operating a car is more expensive when compared to America? If that is the case, wouldn’t America be a big target consumer and design models that Americans might enjoy? I personally like these models, but I don’t see them being too much of a success for too many people. Of course, I am just thinking of US… there is probably other countries around the world that might enjoy them.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    I’m not really sure – gas is going to be more expensive, and parking too. The thing about Japan though, is that people buy new cars way more often. You get a nice fat tax break for having a car that’s pretty new, and you get punished for having old cars, so most cars you see in Japan aren’t that old. So, although fewer people buy cars in Japan (better mass transit), I think people that do buy cars buy them more frequently. I doubt it evens out, but it’s still a pretty big market in Japan. I also see Americans switching to smaller cars like the ones above eventually, though we’ll be slower to catch on. Other markets like Europe and Asia though will more likely be a good market, though (and bigger market overall than US alone).

    I don’t actually know any of these things, though, so take with a grain of salt :)

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    +1 for brown cars

  • Mescale

    The problem with carbon fibre, and pretty many composites is that they are hella hard to manufacture. If you are using a fibre reinforced plastic and if you have very short fibres, you can injection mould, but you really lose a lot of the benefits of the composite material. So you typically need long fibre composites. And the fibres need to take the stress in the right direction, along the fibre is strong, across the fibre is not. So when you manufacture a composite you need to make sure your fibres are correctly laid, in the right directions, not to mention all manner of other issues. The epoxy resin that binds the fibres together is nasty stuff too. Once you’ve laid down your fibres and epoxy you then typically will need to pressurise the composite with several atmospheres of pressure then bake it in an oven to set the epoxy.

    Its a very skilled and complex process which makes mass manufacturing really hard.

    Its also makes the environment cry tears of blood, the epoxy is a thermo-set plastic meaning it need heat to cure, the heat create permanent bonds in the plastic meaning it can’t be melted like thermoplastics. It will burn before it melts, which means its practically impossible to recycle. The carbon fibres are embedded in this epoxy so you can’t remove them, the best you can do is chop it up and use it somehow. Of course that’s not desirable because carbon when chopped up will probably create a fine dust, which is carcinogenic. 

    Carbon fibre isn’t very tough either, toughness is the ability of a material to absorb energy. It has good strength but is brittle, especially perpendicular to the fibres, it would be very easy to damage a carbon fibre body of a car, what would cause a dent in a metal body panel would likely cause serious damage in carbon fibre.

    The Ferrari F50 was made of carbon fibre in the 1995. 

  • http://www.tofugu.com/ Hashi

     Wow. Today I learned about carbon fibre. Thanks, Mescale.

  • ShinKaiZen

    Off topic. Hello. Im just a random regular visitor passing by. I opened this post from my mobile phone and guess what? The picture got squished… Horizontally. Not cool! Oh well. Nice topic post you have here. It’s all about why i love Japan’s weird stuff.

  • http://twitter.com/SuperNoonim Ko

    Oh man, if that Land Glider can get some decent speed, I’d rock that bad boy like nobody’s business. I do kind of like the bubble car though, it’s really cute. 

  • ZXNova

    Japan makes some of the most awesome cars. Too bad not all people appreciate them. :(

  • ianclarksmith

    It’s funny how much some of the modern Japanese designs resemble many ’50s and ’60s Italian designs (thinking Pininfarina). The Honda FC actually looks a lot like some of the sketches for the Ford GT90 as well, especially if you consider that the Ford was made in 1995. Had the GT90 lived into the 21st century it probably would’ve gotten a lot sharper and the detailing much less… ’90s. And the Toyota Ex-II… a much improved Voiture Minimum.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    should be fixed on this post at least now, ty!

  • ZA다ルﻣ

    gliiiiiide pew pew! gliiiiiide pew pew pew! i lol’d when i imagined a preoccupied koichi pewing while gliding.

    seriously, though, on the outside it looks like a bobsled on wheels, but the inside is so cool. it might be scary leading into turns from the inside of a “car,” if like me you’ve never done it before. it’s too bad that we can’t save more money by buying smaller cars, though, since if you did you’d be run over by all those SUVs and hummers.

  • http://twitter.com/shollum Shollum

     I think the only thing I disagreed with you about was the strength of carbon fiber. Last I checked, carbon fiber has a higher tensile strength than steel. If you look at carbon fiber bikes, they are much more impact resistant than steel or aluminum bikes. Of course, the technology is extremely expensive (everything has to be handmade).

    I don’t think carbon will be a good building material until carbon nano-tubes can be grown quickly.

  • Mescale

    Well strength is different to toughness, carbon is strong but strong things aren’t necessarily tough, a tough thing can absorb a lot more energy before it breaks. Strength and toughness are kind of opposites, the stronger something is the more stress it can take, however once it exceeds its stress limit it will fracture, a tough material will once it exceed its yield strength will yield before fracture. The choice between toughness and strength really depends on what you are designing. Toughness is desirable as things will give a visual warning before fracture, low toughness usually means things will fracture without warning.

    Consider a CD jewel case, made from polystyrene, its strong but not very tough, how often do you receive a CD in the post and its all cracked, those little bits in the centre that hold the disk break off. It has a fracture toughness of 0.7 – 1.1 (Units are MPa.m^0.5 but i’ll quote everything in this so they can be compared)

    Now consider a DVD case, made from polypropylene, you can bend it way more than a jewel case without damaging it. It has a fracture toughness of 1.26 – 1.33. You can tell from handling these two materials there is a difference. Which is stronger?

    PS has a tensile strength of 35.9 – 51.7 MPa (Jewel Case)

    PP has a tensile strength of 18.4 – 19.8 MPa (DVD Case)

    So your jewel case is made from a stronger material but it damages much easier.

    (These values were from a piece of software called CES Edupack 2011 http://www.grantadesign.com/education/)

    I don’t think I’d agree that carbon fibre is more impact resistant, if you can ensure the impact force goes along the fibres then maybe OK, but you rarely get to choose where your forces come from. I don’t think there is really any easy way to test the impact toughness of a composite and not in a way that can be compared with other materials.

    A common test for normal materials like metals would be a notch test, a piece of metal with a notch cut out of it is placed in a machine which impact loads it until it fractures, and this gives a measure of the force, but it would be really hard to apply this to a carbon fibre material because of wanting to ensure you take the loads along the fibre or in a specific orientation to get values of its maximum and minimum impact loading.

    So this is a limitation of Carbon fibre it can only really take a load in specific directions it is designed to.

    A good example of this is the aerospace company called Rolls Royce in the 60′s they were designing a blade for a aerospace engine out of carbon fibre. They did lots of work, spent millions, it was only when someone thought to impact test the blades they found their mistake, the blade shattered completely, a metal blade can shrug off a high velocity frozen chicken, but carbon fibre shatters, not what you want in a plane engine. Incidently the company then went bankrupt and had to be bailed out by the UK government.

    If the forces that are applied to carbon fibre go along the fibre carbon is stiff and strong. If you have say a bicycle fork you make sure the fibres are oriented to make the force travel along the fork so bicycle forks are a great use for carbon fibre because the forces are only really linear compressive forces. All the force is taken by the fibres in the right direction.

    However something a lot of cyclists found out with carbon frames and forks is that you have to be careful when doing up bolts, applying too much torque and you’ll break the fibres because the force you apply is not in the direction of the fibres but across, and this will shear the fibres right across.

    Another thing you’ll see is some people with carbon fibre bonnets, consider the direction of the fibres it’ll be a weave of fibres, but they will all be in the plane of the bonnet, basically this means pushing along the edges of the bonnet is fine as the load will go along the fibres but if you sit on the bonnet you will be loading it across the fibres instead of along and its quite possible it’ll damage the fibres.

    Another issue is related to how structures work, the outside of a structure always takes more stress consider a steel beam in the shape of an I (a serif I) the reason its that shape is that most of the stress will be taken by the top and bottom of the I and the middle is just there to keep it together, the difference in strength between a giant steel beam and an I beam isn’t that great and the I beam is much lighter.

    So the same is true when making composites you want your carbon fibre to be at the outside of your structure, because that is where the largest stress will be (typically you’ll fill the inside with something with little strength just acting as a spacer), unfortunately its also where the fibres are most vulnerable to damage.

    Its carbon fibres need for special treatment to avoid damage that makes it unsuitable for general use in cars.

  • http://www.facebook.com/thespidaman Simon DellaBarca

    James Bond has already driven Toyota! a 2000GT in You only live twice :) that is my dream car…so s.e.x.y mmmmmmmm

  • Rashmi

    I like the Nissan Pivo2. Every time I see people rushing to grab the parking space and then do all kinds of moves to parallel park, I’d wonder why cars with pivotable wheels weren’t invented. 

    It also looks a bit like something out of Doraemon’s pocket:-D 

  • belgand

    I’ve always been deeply upset that concept cars never turn into production models. They almost always look so futuristic and flat-out awesome while the cars we usually get are just the same bland forms we’ve been seeing for the past several decades. Has there really been an attractive non-exotic car released in the US since the end of the muscle car era? Even then you were dealing with outliers.

    It’s not even about the awesome new features, power systems, etc. but the great designs. Who doesn’t want to drive a car that looks like it came from the future? And why are we letting those people purchase anything?

    *sigh* it’s all for nought though as I live in the city and don’t even own a car nor really know anyone else who does either. The Smart cars are doing really well here though. Admittedly it’s Haight-Ashbury (less hippie, more hippie-lite yuppies with money these days) , but it’s not uncommon to see three or four in as many blocks. Then again my neighbor owns an Escalade that won’t actually fit into the garage they’re incredibly lucky to even have.

  • http://www.facebook.com/MollyHouse Molly House

    Is it just me or does the land glider cockpit look like the controls for the alien space ships in Independence day? 

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    holy crap – commenter of the year award

  • Hashi

    P-Nut is the wrong name for that car. It should be called the Zori.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    it must be the chaos theory

  • Hinoema

    So, essentially a material that is only extremely impact resistant from a certain direction and shatter-prone in others?

  • Hinoema
  • POOP

    HAHA

  • http://www.jaywiese.com Jay Wiese

    “…I wonder how often you’d see people passing other cars by riding the lines on the road. I hate it when motorcyclists to that, freaks me out.”

    You must live in LA.

  • Guest

    America wont catch on with the small cars, cuz all the guys with tiny penises wont quit buying the F350 trucks to compensate their lack of endowment

  • http://www.vietamins.com Viet

    You must not live in the liberal West coast… All you see are smart cars, those small fiats, vw golfs/gtis, and mini coopers…

    But then again, when I lived in Wyoming, all you could see were diesel trucks.

  • Christykientzler

    I suppose they’ve had about a month to fix it, but despite a “mobile” layout like most sites force, I have found all ‘Fugu’ sites to be very compatible with my mobile browser, and easy to navigate.

  • Guest1123

    Piew Piew Piew

  • pirodragon1

    These cars are pretty cool, I would love to have a some of them, like the Kiyora, Pivo2, or the Land Glider (being my favorite)