Lexus Opens Business And Technical Center In Toyota Technical Center Shimoyama (TTCS)

In March 2024, Lexus will open a new business and technical center at Toyota Technical Center Shimoyama (TTCS). Here members involved in the development, design, production technology, and planning of the Lexus brand will gather to promote "Building Ever Better Cars" that can bring smiles to customers' faces during the period of great automotive change, which is said to occur once in a century.

In addition to continuing with development tests at locations around the world, at Shimoyama Lexus will develop the cars and the people who make the cars. It will do this by repeatedly "driving and fixing" vehicles on test courses that reproduce a wide variety of harsh driving environments from around the world. This kind of vehicle and human resource development is possible because of Shimoyama's vast land and natural terrain with its many undulations.

As for the offices, the Lexus building will be the center of development, and the Messe building will be used for co-creation with external business partners. These two facilities will be sites where members from inside and outside the company share the same purpose and challenge, utilizing an open and agile work style to push car manufacturing beyond existing boundaries.

The cornerstone of new vehicle development will be a new three-story Lexus Building. The first floor―emulating the look and feel of a pit at the Nürburgring where members from all functions gather for each project with a strong will to promote agile development by integrating real car manufacturing on site with cutting-edge digital equipment.

The second floor will house an office area with an open layout for various work functions to improve collaboration and maximize the creativity of each individual. To accelerate car-centered development, all members will be able to move freely between floors as needed and utilize telework, according to their working style at any given time.

The design area on the third floor will prominently feature clay design models, and along with further enhancements to the environment to maximize creativity, will ensure that designers, production engineers, aerodynamicists and other members of the experimental department can closely collaborate and work on new ideas together at the very center of Lexus design development.

The open environments at the Shimoyama Technical Center will also foster co-creation with suppliers and business partners to support the ongoing evolution of the brand in line with our customers' lives. The Messe Building will be a place for close collaboration and in addition to a multipurpose hall, will include an additional garage for Lexus business partners to view, measure, work with, and directly interact with vehicles.

The Shimoyama Technical Center covers and encompasses several test courses engineered for meticulous vehicle evaluation. The first of three test courses was opened in 2019―a 5.3-kilometer (3.3-mile) country road course that uses the natural terrain of Shimoyama to create vigorous driving, bespoke to Lexus vehicle evaluations, with numerous curves of different radii and banking over a total elevation change of 75 meters (250 feet). Around 10 different test courses are now under construction include a high-speed evaluation loop and a test course that recreates specific road surfaces from around the world.

The Shimoyama Technical Center is built under the philosophy of "technical center in harmony with nature and local communities" With regard to coexistence with the local community, we will value the ties we have built with the local people and listen to their opinions as we proceed with the construction.

In terms of environmental conservation, we are striving to properly maintain and manage the natural environment, with nearly 70 percent of the total site area consisting of preserved topography and original plants and wildlife.

Lexus are working to support the regeneration and conservation of the nearby forests and rice fields, also referred to as satoyama (neighboring ecosystems linked closely to the nearby human life), restoring dry and degraded rice paddies into wetland biotopes, and installing year-round water channels in the surrounding valley paddies to provide refuge for the aquatic eco-system.

In addition, tunnels and bridges have been engineered to maintain the natural topography as much as possible, and to provide habitats and migration routes for animals and plant growth.