News Headlines Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. and Salesforce.com, based in San Francisco, announced their alliance Monday to launch "Toyota Friend," a private social network for Toyota owners.In a demonstration at a Tokyo showroom, an owner of a plug-in Prius hybrid found out through a cell phone message from his Prius called "Pre-boy" that he should remember to recharge his car overnight. When the owner plugged in his car to recharge it, the car replied, "The charge will be completed by 2:15 a.m. Is that OK? See you tomorrow." Since many next-generation cars need to be recharged, drivers may need real-time information, such as the battery level of their cars and locations of charging stations, more than regular gas-engine cars.
At first I thought "What? We already have PriusChat." But then I realised this is so we can talk to our cars. Silver can play too!
I hope the charge meter that I'm sure is going to be in every professionally built EV is going to be more accurate than the fuel gauge or properly interpreted but I doubt it. Case in point is the family that drove the Leaf from the airport most of the way home. Charging stations as a POI is a good idea. Are you really expecting better accuracy than what is being delivered now? The nav system in the 2011 is two generations behind in storage technology.
I don't see how this is different from already being able to communicate with the car like what the Leaf can do.
I told my wife about this and made the point about the car asking if 2:15am was ok...what are you going to do, yell at the car to charge faster? This will surely lead to the revolt.
When I read the title of the post I just started laughing. When ever we pass another Prius my five year old says the cars all need ti get together and have a book club.His suggestion for the first book, "Tires and their treads".
+1 That's what I was gona say . . . so . . . hey Ford, welcome to the 21st Century! And here's my state of charge that I just checked. The Leaf is in the parking structure's basement, and the web signal still hooks up just dandy:
Ford? You mean Toyota? Ford will already contact you through Sync and they don't even have an electric out yet.
Of course if you are driving, ALL of this important data will be UNAVAILABLE while the car is in motion......
Whoops . . . um yea . . . that's what I meant. Well, unavailable via web link. But if you're driving, the data is right there in front of you anyway ... and you ought to know you ride is not charging ... because your driving.
"There's a Prius meet tomorrow by the park, would you like to confirm your attendance?" That would be social networking. The car reminding you to charge is only a small step up to those of us who have navigation systems that remind us to take the car in for service or to rotate the tyres or change the 12V battery (user programmed). What would be cool is if Toyota's social networking program had something similar to TomTom Buddies. With TomTom Buddies, say you're meeting up with a friend for lunch. You send the restaurant's address to your friend's TomTom. When you're "visible", you appear as a blue dot on your friend's TomTom (and vice versa, your friend is a blue dot on your TomTom). This can be useful if you're caravanning together and a light separates you.
Oh great. Now, when I'm driving, my car is going to be on the cell phone, talking to other cars, and posting facebook status updates. What happens when both the car and the phone are texting while driving???? ...and what happens when your blue Prius sees a pink Prius? Does it make a U-turn without consulting you first???
