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CAP Blog > CAP Blog > Martin's Blog
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Jun
18
Written by:
Martin Ward
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
I went down to IDIADA, a test facility about one hours drive from Barcelona to have a look at a new vehicle due on the market next year from Toyota. This vehicle is one of 18 new or heavily face lifted models that the company will introduce by the end of 2009.
 After the presentations I sat at the same table for the evening meal with Mr Katsumata, the chief engineer at Toyota. He is a humble man who speaks perfect English and obviously knows the industry. He told me he has been with Toyota for twenty years and has gradually worked his way up the business to get the top position he has now. Previously he was head of chassis and dynamics. He is married with two children aged 14 and 17 and lives near the R&D centre in Japan but regularly travels to Europe. He said that Toyota’s philosophy is to ‘get out and do it’ - he means that staying within the factory walls does not teach you enough.
He has in the past couple of years done exactly that - gone out and found out. He has driven in 34 countries and driven an average of 3,000km per month, simply testing the local roads. He says that they cannot produce the different conditions and surfaces at their test tracks and cannot simulate all the types of roads. He and his team have to go and see for themselves to understand what makes a European road. He often gets out of the car and studies in great detail the consistency of the road surface and tries to work out what makes it so noisy or quiet. He says that depending on the country this varies dramatically with Belgium by far the worst in Europe for badly maintained roads, they have far more cobbles than any other. He says Russian roads change with the difference in climate and temperature and he has to produce a car that suits all.
This is not an easy task - a car that has to perform in all conditions but they make compromises and hopefully the final car will cope with the smooth autobahns of Germany to the potholes of Brussels. He said that interior noise is most important to him and by making small adjustments or adding extra small pieces of metal to the chassis; this can deflect noise or subdue it.
A very interesting, knowledgeable, honest and straightforward man with whom I felt honoured to be in his company and thanked him for making what could have been a very complex conversation, easy to understand. We as drivers just get in the car and drive it and don’t realize just how much time, effort and money has gone in to making the car a pleasant environment.
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