In recent years, there is always a car prop, Erffa, in movies and television, especially in scenes involving rich people in Asia, to pick up and drop off guests. In the garages of rich people in Asia, there are motorcades from Rolls Royce to Lamborghini. However, if the host wants to show respect and special friendliness or closeness to the guests, he will send Erffa to pick them up. If you use Rolls-Royce, it shows respect at most, but inadvertently shows the distance. If you use Bentley, maybe the guests don't like publicity. For example, sending a Lamborghini or Ferrari caters to young guests at most, and even allows them to drive themselves from the airport to their destination. And the important guests, but also give family-style kindness, that is, Erfa. This car culture has been imperceptibly influenced for many years. To understand the unique brand of Toyota and the technology behind it, then we can see the future by understanding its history.

Toyota luxury van

The topic is Wilfa, but you are talking about Erffa. For unfamiliar riders, these are two cars, but for engineers, this is one car. This van has a history.

Toyota started as a loom, and from the very beginning, it set an ambition to face the global market. Therefore, the car brand must be an English name, even if it is Japanese Toyota, it should be revised to facilitate the western context. That's how Toyota came. As early as 1956, the light truck specially developed for the global market was named Toyoace. Ace is the biggest in poker, Toyo is of course Toyota, and Toyoace is the best in Toyota. There is an apt name in Chinese, the flower of Toyota. Ace is called a flower. If you have read books about Japanese culture, you will naturally understand it.

Flower of Toyota

As for light buses that transport guests in cities, they are called vans in China, and Toyota follows Toyota Flower, which is also called Liteace in French. We transliterate it as Letace, which means the flower of a passenger car. China imported a lot in 1970s and 1980s. Toyota's original Liteace, used as a tool car, is very practical for transporting people and carrying tools and equipment that are afraid of rain, as well as commuting cities for groups of people.

Light tool car

Group commuting

Later, some enterprises were used for small group business trips, leaders and secretaries plus translators, as well as sales and finance, which are typical characteristics of Japanese export-oriented enterprises. Considering this business use, Toyota has developed a sister car, luxury business Townace, Flower of the City, which is equipped with electronic fuel injection, automatic transmission, front and rear air conditioning, mini refrigerator and so on. Known as "Liteace Overlord" in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is very popular in Southeast Asia. The size of this model is about 4.5 meters of that of an ordinary car, with rear drive in the middle, low center of gravity, good handling performance, short wheelbase, small turning radius and maximum comfortable seating space for 7 people, which is the representative of this model.

Luxurious configuration

Part of business

This kind of car was exported to America in 1980s, and became the second generation family car. It was very popular to sit with the whole family, children and pets, go shopping and have a holiday on weekends. In the 1990s, this angular bread was out of date, so Toyota specially introduced a replacement model Previa for the North American market, which was sleek in appearance, luxurious in configuration, with handrails and a central passage suitable for transposition, and was deeply loved by American families. In order to distinguish bullies, Hong Kong and Taiwan are called big bullies, and the mainland is called bullet.

Previa

Central passage

In order to adhere to the layout of the mid-engine with low center of gravity and expand the seating space, a horizontal engine 2TZ was specially developed for Previa, which greatly reduced the height of the engine, and specially designed a radiator fan, generator, air conditioning compressor and other accessories at the front end of the long drive shaft vehicle. This low-center-of-gravity rear-drive design makes sports handling far ahead of American MPV Chrysler Grand Jetron and Ford Shengda.

Horizontal 2TZ generator

The success of Previa has stabilized Toyota's position in the field of luxury vans. 2 1 century, due to the application of cost reduction measures such as sharing platform in the global automobile manufacturing industry, under the pressure of high-cost manufacturing, Toyota also compromised and developed Precia, a front-mounted horizontal front-wheel drive platform, to share it with Camry, Lexus and other vehicle platforms.

Precursor precursor

Front transverse platform

After that, Toyota began to pay attention to the different tastes of MPV users in different regions. While paying attention to Previa in the North American market, we also developed a local market-specific vehicle Senna Sienna for North America. In Asian and local markets, Toyota has specially developed Erffa. Although it is the same front cross platform, the body shape and interior are completely different. Erffa has become popular in Asia, and Hong Kong and Taiwan have nicknamed it nanny car. Many movie stars have begun to use it, bringing assistants to various press conferences, using independent second-row seats, and having the title of first class on land.

Second generation Erffa

first-class cabin

Since the second generation of Erffa, luxury MPV has been further distinguished. Erffa is defined as luxury, exquisiteness, elegance and stable users. Vellfire will method is powerful and sharp, and its users are characterized by distinctive personality and pioneer. The internal and external structures are the same, except for the front part, all other parts are common. This is a sister car, but it has different styles and its own brand positioning.

Wilfa and Erffa sisters car.

Toyota's tireless segmentation is the embodiment of multi-vehicle strategy under the shared platform. Under the same platform, as many vehicles as possible cover different customer groups, forming a strict product line. In Japan, Toyota's vehicle sub-brands can achieve luxury customer recognition, so local brands should be luxurious without even the brand Lexus. The top is equipped with Toyota century, followed by crown, and MPV is Erffa. Toyota's iron powder has a special belief in these brands, which is a unique Toyota brand character in Japan.

Wilfa

Looking at the technology under the platform is Toyota's unique feature. Generally speaking, there are two important abbreviations, both in English, which have long been ridiculed by the industry. Toyota is interested in English abbreviations. One is THS, a Toyota hybrid car, also known as e-cvt. The other is e-four, which is an electric four-wheel drive. The structure of E-cvt is very simple, that is, a group of planetary gears and two motors, namely M 1 and M2, but its principle is not easy to understand, so it is only introduced here from an easy-to-understand point of view.

Toyota hybrid power is an ingenious invention of Toyota engineers, which is used to drive the platform horizontally. As can be seen from the figure, the transmission is very thin, with a set of planetary gears and two auxiliary motors inside. The structural connection diagram is as follows:

The output of the generator is connected to the planetary gear carrier, the middle sun gear is connected to the M 1 motor, the gear ring is connected to the M2 motor, and the output is also sent to the driving half shaft. It's that simple. This principle is difficult to understand. The three vertical components can rotate freely, and the components connected with M 1 and M2 motors can rotate at different speeds and directions as required. In this way, only the computer control of M 1 and M2 is needed, and the working conditions of power generation, fuel drive and hybrid drive can be realized, and at the same time, the stepless speed ratio of 0- 100% and reverse gear can be realized. This is e-cvt, a patent of Toyota, called THS.

The next one is e-four, an electric four-wheel drive. This structure is complex and the principle is easy to understand. That is, on the front horizontal front drive platform, a driving motor is added to the rear axle to realize four-wheel drive, which saves the PTU and transmission shaft of the traditional urban SUV, so it is called electric four-wheel drive and is used in conjunction with THS. Electric four-wheel drive has no central transmission mechanism, so it does not need the so-called central differential and differential lock to directly drive the motor, so the performance of four-wheel drive far exceeds the timely four-wheel drive of urban SUV.

Toyota e-4

Electric four-wheel drive, and the rear axle is directly driven by the motor.

As can be seen from the above, Wilfa's luxury MPV is full of personality, unique brand, unique technology and unique positioning. It is an angular and angular Toyota luxury MPV.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.