Story & photos by Patrick P. Tulfo
The recently concluded 46th edition of the famed Tokyo Motor Show, which ran from October 23 to November 4 was everything as I expected it to be. But the motor show was just the icing on the cake. As the perennial event was the last part of a very educational trip.
That gave us a deeper understanding of what the Hino brand is all about and why it’s Japan’s No. 1 truck manufacturer for several years and counting.
The trip was even more eventful as we learned that we were the first batch of journalists invited by Hino Japan to visit their office, as well as their plant, where we got a crashed course on everything about the company.
The well-organized trip did not only focused on Hino or the Tokyo Motor Show but also gave first-timers like me to be enchanted by the beauty of Tokyo, better appreciation of Japanese cuisine and a lot of things that makes one crave for more, but that is a different story altogether.
Hino, like I said earlier, extended an invitation to several motoring journalists to cover the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show which had a theme “Open Future,” and since it was on a short notice, we found out that the motor show coverage played just a small part of the activities that were prepared for us. After getting settled down in the cozy JR Kyushu Hotel Blossom in downtown Shinjuku on the first day then, it was work for the next two days.
Tour of the Hino headquarters and manufacturing plant
It was a long trip to the trucks company’s headquarters located in Hino-shi City, which is more than an hour drive from our hotel. The headquarters was very impressive to say the least. There is a Zen-like garden at the rear of the building, complete with mini waterfall and a pond full of koi fish. We were also shown a minibus which, according to local Hino officials, who were with us on the trip, will be the company’s entry in the PUV modernization program of the government.
Hopefully we will also get the same unit on display or with only minimal changes.
The culmination of that trip was the seminar conducted by Hino officials who shared with us the company’s current and future direction. Hino’s current generation of trucks and buses in Japan boasts of features that have yet to reach our shores.
The plethora of high technology features include sensors and cameras that monitors the environment around the vehicle helping to avoid accidents from happening in the first place.
Meanwhile, sensors on the engine and all the mechanical parts of the vehicle will continuously send information on the health of the vehicle. This feature avoids unexpected breakdowns as the owner will be informed if there is a need to replace a part before it happens.
But what’s impressive is that all the above features on each truck and bus are handled individually by a central system run by Hino, which charges a minimal service fee.
Most unfortunate, though, is there are no words from the company if these impressive features will be available in the Philippines as every market are tailored according to their market needs.
Visit to the Koga Plant
After that fruitful visit and a quick lunch on a nearby hotel, we then went to the company’s latest manufacturing plant located in Koga. The Koga Plant has an expansive area of 850,000 meters or 85 hectares.
Most of it are still open space which boasts of endemic flora and fauna being nurtured by the company as part of their corporate social responsibility.
The Koga Plant churns out 199 units daily of heavy- and medium-duty trucks, as well as KD sets. It employs 2,500 personnel, now on two shifts. Most of the trucks are exported to other countries including ours that come from Koga.
Here we witnessed how a Hino truck is assembled from the start to finish. The whole system was very systematic and, most of the time, automated. According to plant managers, plans are already in the pipeline that will make some of dangerous task for human employees to be a fully automated affair like welding, for example.
When asked about if the whole procedure might be fully automated soon, Hino executives said that the human component on the whole process will not be removed and will continue to play a vital role in the company’s production line in the years to come.
Glimpse of the past and future
The activities prepared on the following day are best summed up as the “Glimpse of the Past and the Future.” The past is the visit to the Hino Auto Plaza, which houses the museum located in Minamino, Hachioji City, also in Tokyo.
The museum displays the first Hino truck manufactured way back in 1918. It also houses other interesting finds such as cars which Hino manufactured in its early years before they shifted their focus—on trucks alone. And surprisingly, Hino also tried their hands on plane production at one point in the past. This museum is often visited by locals including children as part of their education.
The culmination of invitation was the visit to the Tokyo Motor Show wherein we saw the futuristic “FlatFormer platform,” this concept aims to change mobility forever. It was designed for greater efficiency in the mobility of people and goods, but aside from being environment friendly as it features a fully electric motors run by batteries. The possibilities offered by the platform are almost endless as shown by a short anime story on the big screen. The FlatFormer can be moving business bus, a driverless bus and even an automated delivery truck complete with an automated drone truly futuristic.
Also, on display was the Hino500 Series Rally Truck which is the official entry of the company to the grueling Paris Dakar Rally series. Hino is the first Japanese truck manufacturer to enter the popular rally event and has finished all the 28 races it started. But it was in 1997 that Hino astonished the world when it took the one, two and three spots thereby sweeping the overall truck category.
The Hino500 Series is powered by an inline six-cylinder, four-cycle diesel engine that produces an astonishing 670 hp and 236 kgm/1200 rpm.
Aside from these two crowd drawers, Hino also displayed the good-looking Profia truck that is powered by a hybrid engine.
Image credits: Patrick P. Tulfo