TOYOTA / HA:MO

Toyota in Japan is trialling a new system that seeks to make city travel more energy efficient and frictionless, by enabling commuters to rent electric one-seater cars and easily find the best routes to their destination.

As part of Toyota's Ha:mo project (short for harmonious mobility), travellers can pick up one of 10 COMS electric cars from four vehicle sharing stations around Toyota City, home to Toyota's main factory. COMS stands for chotto odekake machimade suisui, meaning smooth, short rides into town. The car-sharing system called Ha:mo Ride works much in the same way as the cycle hire schemes of cities like Paris and London. The cars are available at a total of four unmanned stations at Chukyo University and local train stations.

The Ha:mo project also includes the Navi service that help commuters find the optimal transport method, including trains, buses, cars, and taxis. People can use a smartphone app to find the best and most energy-efficient route, as well as book one of the COMS vehicles if necessary. The Navi system advises users on how they should travel from A to B, taking traffic congestion and parking space availability into consideration.

The free trial was launched in October for 100 participating Chukyo University students and employees but Toyota aims to extend the project throughout Toyota City to up to 1,000 participants. The plan is also to increase the number of electric vehicles to 100 and build between 10 and 20 vehicle stations. While Toyota has said that the service will remain free for the first year to encourage participation, the company plans to charge a fee once Ha:mo becomes more widely adopted. Toyota has said it is also considering adding electric bicycles to its service.

Contagious Insight      

Toyota here is affirming its positioning as more than just a car manufacturer, but a developer of mobility services. In this respect the auto brand can be grouped together with BMW, which has launched services like DriveNow and ParkNow, or Mercedes, with its Park Assist service that recognises empty parking spaces. Toyota realises that just because someone drives a car it doesn't mean that they don't also use other modes of transportation and the brand seeks to make their journey from A to B as seamless as possible no matter how they're travelling. In this respect Toyota has adopted service design thinking, by creating a useful service to remove the friction from consumers' lives.

By creating a service that is less harmful to the environment than driving a regular car, Ha:mo also helps to position the car brand as more ecologically friendly (building on its reputation with Prius), not an easy task considering the sector Toyota is in.
 
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