A driver in Toyota's new safety testing simulator gets a 360-degree, synchronized view of the road and landscape, signs, pedestrians, street-side stores and faraway Mount Fuji.
But the drive is only make-believe.
The simulator has a Lexus inside a 15-foot-high, 23-foot-diameter dome that provides the sense of acceleration, vibration and sound of driving a car.
The dome swivels, tips and swishes on a rail to deliver the sensations of driving while computer graphic imagery on the sides of the dome gives the impression that the trip is real.
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In a demonstration for reporters Monday at a Toyota technology center, the dome moved in a 115-foot-long building, skidding on a rail horizontally and vertically.
When a driver pushed on the brakes, the dome tilted forward to give the effect of stopping. When the driver turned the steering wheel to the right, the dome cocked to the right to give the feeling of turning.
Toyota Motor Corp. officials said the simulator is useful for testing safety features — such as warning beeps about oncoming vehicles — without endangering drivers.
The machine will also be handy for analyzing how drowsiness and intoxication affect driving, they said.
The big unknown about making safe cars is understanding the human brain and other aspects of human behavior, and the simulator will help solve such questions, said Executive Vice President Kazuo Okamoto.
Other automakers have developed driving simulators, but they tend to be stationary, giving the effect of driving by shaking, rocking and showing imagery only in one spot.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the U.S. has a machine similar to Toyota's that allows people to feel acceleration, braking and steering. Toyota said it had borrowed heavily from NHTSA's technology.
The dome and other moving parts of Toyota's simulator weighs 78 tons, the company said.
Toyota declined to say how much the simulator cost to make. There are no plans to sell the simulator, it said.
The two reporters who drew lots to try out Toyota's simulator said the braking and acceleration felt much like real-life driving, although one reporter said the graphics weren't realistic enough.
There are no computer graphics of a crash. Hitting a computer-generated pedestrian merely makes the image disappear.
Toyota engineer Takashi Yonekawa said the simulator's purpose is not to test driving skills. It will be used to develop safety features tailor-made for various kinds of drivers, including the elderly and beginners, he said.
Koji Endo, auto analyst with Credit Suisse in Tokyo, said he thought the simulator was a long-term investment.
