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Metal wheels:
The Lunar Cruiser is scheduled to roll across the moon as early as 2029
Photo: AP
The largest car manufacturer on earth wants to go to the moon.
Toyota is working with the Japanese space agency on a vehicle to explore the lunar surface.
It should help people to live on the moon by 2040 and later on Mars, the world's largest carmaker said on Friday.
Developed in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa), the vehicle is named the Lunar Cruiser, in homage to the Toyota Land Cruiser pickup.
It is scheduled to travel over the moon in the late 2020s.
There is already the vision that people will eat, work, sleep and communicate with others in their cars in the future - the same is also possible in space, said
Takao Sato
, head of the project, which was first presented in 2019. "We see space as an opportunity for a transformation that we only experience once every hundred years. If we fly into space, we may be able to develop telecommunications and other technologies that will prove valuable to human life," Sato said to the Associated Press news agency.
The move fits in well with the company philosophy.
Ever since it was founded in the 1930s, Toyota has repeatedly feared losing a core business as a result of the changing times.
The group has ventured into sectors such as real estate or mobile communications, producing boats, jets and robots.
A sustainable, grid-connected residential area, known as the Woven City, is under construction near Mount Fuji, with construction scheduled to begin this year.
In the west, the group is primarily perceived as a car manufacturer.
Last year he built 10.5 million cars, as Toyota also announced on Friday.
This is an increase of more than ten percent compared to the previous year.
Toyota remains the world's largest automaker, well ahead of the Volkswagen Group, which sold just 8.9 million vehicles.
At the same time, fascination with the moon has also increased in Japan.
The industrialization of space is a pillar of the government's long-term economic strategy.
The car manufacturers play a special role in this.
In addition to Toyota, rival Nissan is also working on a project for an autonomous lunar rover.
A private Japanese company called Ispace is working on lunar rovers - and is planning a first moon landing later this year.
Businessman
Yusaku Maezawa
, 46, who recently took videos of himself on the International Space Station, has booked a moon orbit aboard Tesla boss
Elon Musk
's , 50, spacecraft.
Toyota engineer
Shinichiro Noda
said he was excited about the moon project.
"Sending our cars to the moon is our mission," he said.
Toyota has vehicles almost everywhere.
"But this is about taking our cars where we've never been."
lhy/AP
