Photo: Original image by autoevolution
The collaboration between Toyota and BMW produced some interesting new technologies and will continue to be fruitful. The 2 car manufacturers signed a first deal to collaborate in 2012 for "joint development of a fuel cell system, joint development of architecture and components for a future sports vehicle, collaboration on powertrain electrification and joint research and development on lightweight technologies.”
That first deal was signed somewhere around mid-2012 and later, towards the end of the year another one was signed in order to expand the joint research to other areas as well, showing that they probably got some good results out of this collaboration.
BMW is definitely interested in Toyota's hybrid technology for its future electric or hybrid vehicles while Toyota seems more interested in the racing DNA of the Bimmers. Even Toyota's chief, Akio Toyoda said that “at the Nurburgring, there is always a car that passes me. It is a BMW,” so their intentions are more than clear.
ToyotaBlog got the chance to interview Tetsuya Tada the chief engineer responsible for developing the new, amazing GT86 and got him to talk a bit about the joint-venture with BMW. Tada admitted that he has great plans for the new Toyota GT86, following BMW's plans with MINI. He said “It’s just my personal dream that the GT86 could become a family like what BMW has done with the Mini family. I hope that happens".
Furthermore, talking about BMW and the way they're working together, Tada said that the most challenging part is getting to know their partners. German people are a bit serious and straightforward and focus mainly on business looking to get the best results all the time. However, Tada thinks that this will change over time and allow the two sides to work together even better.
“It is absolutely essential to have great connections with each other that go beyond just pure business logic. I was able to have remarkable encounters with people at Subaru and we had supporters behind us on the Toyota and the Subaru side. I’d even say these connections have to happen if the BMW collaboration is to work. If we carried along the lines of same-old, same-old, then nothing good will come out of this. At the moment we are struggling, because we are having this really business-like dealing with BMW and we haven’t really been able to get through that barrier so far. Perhaps I need to meet them socially and drink beer and eat sausage together. In fact the one time I felt we went beyond the business-like barrier was when we all went to Oktoberfest and drank beer. That was the one time, when we were drinking together that I thought, these are unexpectedly good people" said Tetsuya Tada in the interview.
For the future, we already said on an earlier report that the work Toyota and BMW are doing together will bring out a new sports car based on the Z4 combined with a little something from the legendary Supra. The new Z4 will be based on the GT86 platform and will have a V6 hybrid engine that's the result of the Japanese-German joint venture. This new engine will have a 2.5-liter capacity and around 400 HP making the future Z4 and the 2017 Supra extremely fast sport cars.
BMW is definitely interested in Toyota's hybrid technology for its future electric or hybrid vehicles while Toyota seems more interested in the racing DNA of the Bimmers. Even Toyota's chief, Akio Toyoda said that “at the Nurburgring, there is always a car that passes me. It is a BMW,” so their intentions are more than clear.
ToyotaBlog got the chance to interview Tetsuya Tada the chief engineer responsible for developing the new, amazing GT86 and got him to talk a bit about the joint-venture with BMW. Tada admitted that he has great plans for the new Toyota GT86, following BMW's plans with MINI. He said “It’s just my personal dream that the GT86 could become a family like what BMW has done with the Mini family. I hope that happens".
Furthermore, talking about BMW and the way they're working together, Tada said that the most challenging part is getting to know their partners. German people are a bit serious and straightforward and focus mainly on business looking to get the best results all the time. However, Tada thinks that this will change over time and allow the two sides to work together even better.
“It is absolutely essential to have great connections with each other that go beyond just pure business logic. I was able to have remarkable encounters with people at Subaru and we had supporters behind us on the Toyota and the Subaru side. I’d even say these connections have to happen if the BMW collaboration is to work. If we carried along the lines of same-old, same-old, then nothing good will come out of this. At the moment we are struggling, because we are having this really business-like dealing with BMW and we haven’t really been able to get through that barrier so far. Perhaps I need to meet them socially and drink beer and eat sausage together. In fact the one time I felt we went beyond the business-like barrier was when we all went to Oktoberfest and drank beer. That was the one time, when we were drinking together that I thought, these are unexpectedly good people" said Tetsuya Tada in the interview.
For the future, we already said on an earlier report that the work Toyota and BMW are doing together will bring out a new sports car based on the Z4 combined with a little something from the legendary Supra. The new Z4 will be based on the GT86 platform and will have a V6 hybrid engine that's the result of the Japanese-German joint venture. This new engine will have a 2.5-liter capacity and around 400 HP making the future Z4 and the 2017 Supra extremely fast sport cars.
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