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Milan, Italy: Toyota’s boat-like Setsuna concept car with bodywork made almost entirely of wood will debut at the Milan Design Week April 12-17, the manufacturer has announced.
The Setsuna is a 3.03-metre-long two-seater with an electric drive-train. Toyota says the choice of Japanese cedar wood for the outside panels and birch for the frame makes the car uniquely sustainable.
No screws or nails are used to hold together the wood components in the Setsuna, which has adopted okuriari, a traditional Japanese joinery technique. The use of wood extends to the floor and seats.
The car’s name - Setsuna, meaning “moment” in Japanese - was chosen to reflect how people experience precious, fleeting moments together with their cars, said Toyota in a poetically worded press release.
Environmental factors such as temperature and humidity will alter the Setsuna’s appearance and show how “cars undergo a gradual transformation over the years, as if absorbing the aspirations, memories, and emotions of multiple generations of a family.”
To keep track of these, the Setsuna car has an age meter that tracks the vehicle from birth to its 100th birthday. Toyota said the car could be passed down generations of owners.
Further technical details, such as the size, power and range of the electric motor and batteries fitted, have not been revealed.
dpa
