TOYOTA Commemorative Museum / Plastics that cannot be distinguished from steel body panels
The TOYOTA Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology was established by the Toyota Group companies in 1994 on the location of the first factory built by Toyota. The museum's Textile Machinery Pavilion and Automobile Pavilion present the development of Japan's industrial technology with exhibits of textile machinery, one of the core industries that helped build modern Japan, and automobile engineering, which continues to drive the country's development. (For more information, see the February 2012 issue of the PR magazine pla-topia.) http://www.tcmit.org/
Plastics that cannot be distinguished from steel body panels
The use of plastics in the car body is not progressing due to the problem of electromagnetic noise but among large components, plastics are used in bumpers. Materials used include urethane and TSOP, the latter being a proprietary material of TOYOTA. Nowadays the paint applied to bump era and steel body panels is exactly the same and it is not obvious that the bumper is actually made from plastic.
Studies directed at utilizing composite materials such as carbon fiber-reinforced plastics in automobile bodies are underway with the objective of responding to environmental issues and realizing further lightweighting.
