Toyota’s equivalent of the Twizy all-electric city runabout, the COMS, has been included in a Japanese car sharing scheme, which is part of a much grander service, called Harmonious Mobility Network, or Ha:mo, which is currently in the first stages of testing.
It proposes advanced software, which allows users to accurately plot their routes to wherever they need to go, as efficiently and as quickly as possible, using a variety of transportation methods, from buses and subways to shared cars and personal cars.
It is split into two parts: Ha:mo Navi and Ha:mo Ride. The first is already up and running, and it allows a variety of optional routes, which use any of the available means of transportation, checking the availability of parking spots and traffic conditions.
Ha:mo Ride uses the COMS EV, which can be rented for short distances, to cover ground more quickly, or to bypass any areas where public transport may not be the best option, or is inadequate (though we doubt there are such spots in Japan, where everything seems to run perfectly 24/7).
For the latter, four stations have been opened, two of which are at Chukyo University. They currently have ten EVs available, and they can be used for short one-way journeys - the serivce is free of charge for the first year of operation.
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