Share price of Toyota Motor Corporation (TM) increased 1.2% to $123.13 on Nov 28 after the automaker announced that it will launch a new set of active safety technologies next year. These technologies will help to prevent or diminish the chances of collisions at different vehicle speeds.
Toyota will be offering these technologies in two “Toyota Safety Sense” packages, which will be launched in 2015. The two packages include the ‘C’ package for compact cars and the ‘P’ package for mid-sized and high-end vehicles. These packages will be available for passenger vehicles in Japan, North America and Europe by the end of 2017. Toyota will also consider a price level that most customers will find affordable.
The Toyota Safety Sense C package integrates the existing active safety technologies of the automaker with camera and laser radar which offer high reliability and performance. The technologies include the Pre-Collision System (“PCS”) which helps in preventing collisions, the Lane Departure Alert (“LDA”) which helps in preventing vehicles from departing from their lanes and the Automatic High Beam (“AHB”) which helps in ensuring optimal forward visibility at night.
The Toyota Safety Sense P package comes with a camera, millimeter-wave radar and the three active safety technologies of the C package. The Pre-Collision System offered in the P package also includes a pedestrian detection function. Moreover, the package offers Radar Cruise Control functionality.
Toyota focuses on ensuring traffic safety. Thus, the automaker is committed to developing safer vehicles and technologies which will help in creating a safer traffic environment.
Toyota also announced that from next year, some of its new models will be compatible with advanced vehicle-infrastructure cooperative systems. These systems use a wireless frequency which is reserved for Intelligent Transport Systems (“ITS”). This compatibility will be offered for the Toyota Safety Sense P package.
This system will utilize the ITS frequency of 760 MHz for road-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-vehicle communication. With the help of audio and visual alerts, the system will warn drivers. The Communicating Radar Cruise Control feature will help the vehicles to maintain safe distance between themselves on highways.
Currently, Toyota carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked automobile stocks worth considering include Gentex Corp. (GNTX), STRATTEC Security Corp. (STRT) and Meritor, Inc. (MTOR). Both Gentex and STRATTEC Security sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), while Meritor carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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