Toyota has confirmed that it will make an electric successor to the classic mid-engined MR-2 sports car, and it is giving us a hint of how that might look with this, the FT-Se concept car, designed and shown under Toyota’s Gazoo Racing high-performance umbrella.
Light and fun
Toyota bosses are promising that the new car will be ‘low, light and fun’ and we’re also being promised new battery technology that will keep the weight of the car under control. Weight being the diametric enemy of fun, and all that. The production model will be built around Toyota’s new ‘gigacasting’ production system which can build most of a new car in three separate modules. This makes for massive build cost savings, allowing the company to offer low-volume sports cars such as this at a profitable price.
New battery tech
It will also use Toyota’s incoming new battery technology. This won’t be solid-state batteries, or at least not yet, but a new generation of lighter, more energy-dense lithium-ion batteries which are claimed to offer as much as 800km of range in their largest size. It’s likely that the production version of FT-Se would use a more compact battery pack than that, though, in the interests of saving weight. “We are making battery EVs like only a true carmaker can” said Koji Sato, Toyota’s CEO at the reveal of the FT-Se. “This means revisiting the fundamental principles of car making, and delivering basic performance, like driving range, as well as value that only battery EVs can offer. One example is making cars with both a low centre of gravity and a spacious interior, which was not possible in the past. To do this, we need to make the main components much smaller and lighter, and deploy our strengths as a carmaker to put them together in the best package possible. Achieving this means that the design, the driving feel, and everything else can be transformed.”
Automotive seasoning
Given that, so far, there have been few genuinely fun-to-drive electric cars, Sato was keen to point out that Toyota sees a future where there’s more differentiation between electric models, and more scope for driving fun: “They are not only eco-friendly. Electric cars also offer their own flavour of driving fun and automotive seasoning,” he said. “And they can deliver diverse experience value. Of course, Toyota and GR-brand cars, like with these two models here, will also change. If we have the technology to make cars smaller, lower and lighter, from sports cars and SUVs to pickup trucks and small vans, we can create a diverse line-up with outstanding qualities.” Sato also alluded to the potential of a manual gearbox for sporty EVs, calling it “playing with the automotive seasoning in Manual mode.” Inside, the FT-Se gets a yoke-style steering wheel, as found in some versions of the current Toyota bZ4X. This is connected to a computer-controlled active steering system which means you don’t have to move your hands (or cross them) to get full steering lock. As with the bZ4X, the digital driver’s display is set well back, almost at the base of the windscreen, which removes the need for a head-up display. Toyota has also put comfortable knee-pads on the hard-points of the FT-Se’s centre console, to give you somewhere to brace your legs when cornering hard, hinting at the car’s performance credentials.