All About Japan Autos

The Ford Focus Electric and the Nissan Leaf are two all electric cars that let you hook your smart phone to your car to help you find the nearest charging station or charge your vehicle when electrical rates are cheapest.

Toyota is another automaker that’s adapting smart phone technology for green cars. Toyota and Microsoft “announced they have forged a strategic partnership and plan to build a global platform for TMC’s next-generation telematics services using the Windows Azure platform,” Toyota says in a press release. Telematics integrates different tech systems such as GPS, energy management (green car information) and other tech devices into one system.

“This new partnership between Microsoft and Toyota is an important step in developing greater future mobility and energy management for consumers around the world. Creating these more efficient, more environmentally advanced products will be our contribution to society,” said Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota. “To achieve this, it is important to develop a new link between vehicles, people and smart center energy-management systems.”

Ford and Nissan already have similar systems on their Focus Electric and Leaf models, and Toyota’s updates will make its green cars more competitive. According to the L.A. Times, “The system will also have smart-grid features that Toyota is testing in Japan that will allow cars to interact with homes and other mobile devices so that users can control and plan their energy consumption.” Toyota believes that this is a critical advancement as more people switch to green cars because these systems help owners drive and charge their vehicles more efficiently.

The cloud-based telematics system will be available on some Toyota models for the 2012 model year. 2012 is a milestone because that’s when some of Toyota’s additions to the Prius lineup – the Prius c and the Prius plug-in hybrid – hit the U.S. market. Car and Driver says these models will benefit most from “car-to-car, phone-to-car, and grid-to-car communication.” They add, “The unnamed system promises to let drivers remotely control things like charging and climate control (helpful so that the car reaches the desired temperature while plugged into the grid, so that more of the car’s electrons can be used for locomotion), and feeds battery-level and maintenance information to a smart phone. Onboard GPS will dynamically monitor the distance to charging stations.”

Toyota and Microsoft’s unnamed telemantics system will make the Prius c and plug-in hybrid more competitive in the United States’ growing green car market. That means you’ll have more options. As the number of green cars in the U.S. increases and their telemantics systems become more advanced, don’t be afraid to give these programs a thorough run-through before you buy a hybrid, electric or plug-in hybrid. Electronics can get confusing, and it’s important that you select a system that’s not only helpful, but easy to use.

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