The Toyota Engineering Society is Toyota’s oldest in-house volunteer organization, put together “to improve the technical skills and talents of its members, promote camaraderie, and contribute to the development of technological fields in various areas of business.” Each year, it develops a project under a theme in an exercise of monozukuri, which is a hard word to explain as it covers multiple disciplines and philosophies. For now, let’s say it’s the spirit of craftsmanship, dedication, and improvement. In 2024, the theme was “What’s this? It’s Amazing!”

And what the engineers came up with is something straight out of a futuristic science fiction movie: a transparent spherical capsule that rotates around the occupants as a form of transport. Want more attention than the guy with a raucous GR Supra? This would do the trick.

It Looks Simple From Afar, But It’s Seriously Complex

The principle is simple, but the execution proved far more complicated. Essentially, two metal rails run either side of the driver module around the inside of the transparent sphere and are driven by wheels on the driver module, causing the sphere to spin around it. It can turn as well, presumably by the outer wheels turning faster than the inside wheels on the turning side, like a tank.

There’s a joystick inside to control the sphere, but the demonstration was performed using “autonomous driving.” We put that in quotation marks as the demonstration we saw from Toyota Times only sees the sphere move backward and forward by around ten feet.

Wonderfully Impractical – But It Shows What’s Possible

To create a transparent sphere strong enough for purpose, the Toyota Engineering Society engineers brought in a company called Shinsi, which specializes in acrylics and, most usefully here, makes high-strength curved panels for aquariums. The engineers from Shinsi struggled to create a sphere, though. When they cracked it, so to speak, and polished out the cloudiness, they had a perfect, strong sphere to provide 360-degree visibility.

To get someone into the sphere, about a third of the side of the sphere had to be removed as a hatch, and he needed steps to get up inside. That’s not practical at all, but once he was in, the tester was impressed at how smoothly the sphere moved. Of course, a sphere on a smooth surface should be smooth, but the concept was proven. It is, of course, an exercise in engineering, not a prototype or something planned to actually be used.

The concept would quickly become useless in the real world when it comes to traction and by having a lack of precision when steering. Bumpiness could be solved with a suspension system for the driver module but, overall, it’s a massively over-engineered solution to a problem we’ve already solved as a society with, say, golf carts.