Toyota Cranking Out More Prefabs
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07. 7.08
It isn't bad looking. It's a prefab built by Toyota in an assembly line with robots and conveyor belts, and comes with a sixty year warranty. It is fire and earthquake-proof. It will soon come with an electrical system that can charge up your car during off-peak hours.
According to the Wall Street Journal, prospective purchasers can step into an earthquake simulator " for a lesson in why a durable home is important in this earthquake-prone country. Other displays focus on how Toyota's car technologies have been applied to houses, including a rustproofing process that preserves the house's steel structure for decades; a device to quiet engines that can help damp vibrations from foot traffic on the upper floors; and a single key that can be coded to open both the owner's Toyota car and Toyota home."
"Like its cars, Toyota's lineup of homes is wide-ranging, with more than a dozen designs. There is the popular Smart Stage, a conservative, 1,000-square-foot, two-story home priced at about $200,000. Then there is the sleek, custom-built 2,600-square-foot Espacio Square for the Lexus set that sells for more than $800,000."
Kiichiro Toyoda, founder of Toyota Motor, "saw the destruction from fire of Tokyo's homes during World War II and believed that his company's technologies could someday be used to develop more-durable homes. "
But when the founder of IKEA decided to get into housing, the company looked at who needed it (single moms) and how to best organize it (apartments with shared community resources) and used their design and manufacturing skills to change the way people live. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Toyota used those fabulous manufacturing and technological skills to build machines for living that were not single family suburban houses, as nice as they are. ::Wall Street Journal via ::Jetson Green
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LOVE the modern styling. Don't love the price tag. Like an EV, I need an affordable home. Even the smallest is beyond my budget when you factor in the cost of building site and improvements needed to get ready for a prefab. Don't forget the 15% or so cost of landscaping too. This does not create my idea of an affordable home.
i want that!
There is still a place for single family homes in a green world. Density does wonders for efficiency of all kinds, energy and otherwise. But if you want buildings to be self-powered also, well, single-family homes do have an attractive amount of roof-space- more than enough to power an electric vehicle and to sell some excess back to denser cities. Will suburbs decline in popularity if energy prices stay high and public transit options remain limited? Undoubtedly. But the allure of space, privacy, and ownership aren't going anywhere. Plus, our farmers etc. need to live somewhere, and it most likely isn't going to be in cities.
More importantly, this just reminds us that good design and quality construction are as important as advanced technology for improving the way we live.
I have visited a Toyota home in Nara, Japan (a hotbed of prefab activity, home to many manufacturers) and have to say that it is, without question, the best designed prefab I have ever seen. The Japanese half of my family, whom I dragged to the showroom (or is that show block? as it is a block of homes from different manufacturers) agree.
The only conundrum I face is how to get one in to Canada.
Oh, and the price? Step into one and you'll think it's a downright bargain. Take a bath in a Japanese bath room (yes, a room) and you'll think it's a steal.
I can't wait for affordable solar panels or thin film, my 104 year old house, an east-west oriented bungalow has an enormous southern exposure.
Auhh, I would love a prefab classical style house. Why not a prefab southern plantation style house for a chance instead of this plastic art deco style???