Toyota Children's Web Site (1995)
toyota.co.jp
toyota.co.jp
Copyright date != Creation/Modification date.
Archive.org offers no evidence that this page existed prior to 2008; between 1995 and 2008, it didn't manage to find that page.
The Archive's 2008 fetch serves up a blank page, with a Copyright 1995-2010 date: two years into the future. Unless the Archive screwed up, it shows that in 2008, this existed as a blank placeholder page only, whose purpose was to make a falsely dated copyright claim over an expressive work that is blank.
You're right that this version of the page is not at all from 1995 though it seems to be from a Flash -> HTML 5 rewrite in ~2017 with updates since. They just stopped updating the copyright line with -<current year>.
I was able to download and run this in Flash Projector, and it appears to be identical to the current site.
Will the kids repeat that to their parents when they want to buy a car, or will the kids buy a self charging Toyota 30 years later because they remembered old propaganda?
This is the hope... "brand affinity" it's why Facebook started focusing on kids, so they could get them into the ecosystem over their lifespan and avoid "facebook is for old people" issues.
And anecdotally it probably works, I remember toy ads from 30 years ago quite well.
Kids do engage in this stuff themselves though, I wrote a letter to Sega at one point to point out a typo in the Genesis manual and they sent me a bunch of stickers and stuff. I was genuinely curious about how their company operated, how games were made, etc... so informational content might be satiating general curiosity from kids they've noticed, but it's a thin line.
This is just one of Toyota's many prongs PR-wise.
Right now they're full-bore trying to fight the electric vehicle movement because they are dead-set on hybrid cars being the "future" even though it's plain as day that they won't be except for most consumers. Hybrids will likely only see use in commercial applications, or sales in areas with poor electrical grid infrastructure.
I'm sure they'll get better for longer range stuff and that will be part of the farther future -- but if you're making regular runs over a certain range, they'll cost you in terms of time and calculation. This is not at all hypothetical, either. I know EV drivers who have to either rule out or carefully manage some activities for this reason, and it's true whether you've got a SmartCar or a Tesla. What's still hypothetical is that EVs are going to meet everyone's needs anytime soon, and it's only reasonable to suppose it'll stay that way until someone figures out battery swap or petro-fillup charge speed.
Hybrids may not be the future future, but they're between here and there.
EVs will meet most everyone's needs, whether it's a bike, motorcycle, car, or van/light truck. Wright's Law has held for EVs and batteries, and very soon EVs are going to be cheaper than ICE cars. Just the last week or two on HN alone there have been articles about how battery prices are continuing to plunge. Capacity/density improvements are slower, but already many EVs have nearly the same range as a lot of ICE car equivalents. For example, plenty of cars have about 300mi range, and 250 mile range EVs are now commonplace.
Given they're the most expensive part of an EV and there are already numerous EVs on the market that are at least within spitting distance of ICE equivalents - in a few years EVs are going to be eating ICE cars for lunch price-wise. They're mechanically simpler, lower maintenance needs, etc.
Solar keeps getting cheaper, wind keeps getting cheaper too. In the US, +40% of the installed electric generating capacity this year was solar and wind. The installed capacity last year was equal to something like twenty nuclear power plants.
Liquid iron-based batteries already being sold...and are safe, simple, and cheap as hell to make and scale well all the way from "household" to "grid substation" levels which is the last hurdle for us going to significantly more renewable energy technologies.
I could see in ten years having an iron-based battery in my basement or in a little shed behind the house, my roof covered in solar panels, and an electric bicycle and car in my garage. Maybe a co-generation furnace (sterling engine generator that also supplies hot water for heating and bathing) as a backup...but quite possibly no grid connection at all.
Correct. But what they don't have is competitive re-fueling time. You end up with full-range refractory periods for EVs around an order of magnitude larger than ICEs or hybrids. That represents a time and logistical overhead cost that ICE/hybrid drivers don't have to pay.
> Toyota has been caught off-guard big time by how fast the EV market has moved, and now they're left holding a very wet, cold blanket that is hybrid technology.
Toyota is two decades past the point where they were able to make full EVs[0] and had over a decade on which they were able to investigate and refine them.
As tempting as this is to turn this into narrative of the bold visionaries who knew to look to an EV future vs entrenched special interests who only have their tepid hybrids to hold onto, the facts tell a different story in terms of fundamental capability.
If Toyota is making a bet on hybrids, they have a reason that goes beyond their limits as a company.
My bet would be on this one, and I can confirm that this kind of a strategy worked on me personally.
As a kid around 5-7yo, I liked playing Colin McRae Rally on PS1. My favorite car in the game by far was Subaru Impreza, mostly because of its cool design and livery. Not much else to it, as I wouldn't know a single thing about car specs at 5-7yo, and the car wasn't "the best car in the game" in terms of performance or anything of that nature IIRC. It was literally just a cool-looking car to me as a kid.
As an adult, I have no interest in purchasing a Subaru Impreza, but when I see a modern version of it on the streets (especially in the classic rally blue or the classic rally blue+yellow livery), my eyes instantly get peeled to it, and I think "man, this is a great car that I started liking as a kid and still think it looks great, I kinda want to give it a test drive, just for fun, not to buy".
And while I am not actually planning to do a test drive anytime soon, it is like a sales funnel. A good chunk of people who have similar thoughts, they will give it a test-drive. Out of people who do "just a test-drive, not planning to buy", a good number of them end up changing their mind and buying the car because of how much they liked the test drive.
So outside the containing <table> nothing seems to be from 1995 and outside the image assets nothing seems to be from prior to 2017.
Wonder when they will "update" it.
I really hope they don't replace it with something modern, or if they do at least keep an archived version of it somewhere.
At this point, I'm even starting to think that (c) 1995 in the footer is just a joke. Did anyone remember seeing this website in the 90s ?
Anyway, nice website
https://web.archive.org/web/19990508195133/http://www.disney...
Also interesting that Mickey Mouse is spelled without the 'e' in German.
I have this opinion that the more constrained we are, the more useful things we produce.
>we have closed the site as of November 30, 2021