Hi, I'm Monte Kaehr, Chief Engineer of this all-new Sienna.
In making this all new Sienna from the ground up,
we were able to really re-imagine what the vehicle is.
We've talked a little bit already about how the exterior design was meant to
show a bold presence and get everybody to see that this is a completely new
minivan. On the inside, when you step in and open the driver's door,
you see that connected cockpit. It also gives you a sense of confidence.
So finally, we had to complete the formula with a confident performance.
Hello, my name is Chris Dragan.
I'm from the vehicle performance development division.
What our engineers sought out to do is to make this vehicle the most
intuitive and natural feeling vehicle on the market.
The torsional stiffness in this vehicle is 40% higher than the outgoing model.
This helps not only steering
but also body control and overall confidence.
One of the ways our engineers were able to optimize this body structure was by
lightweighting some of the key components that don't actually add
performance to the vehicle. Starting with the handling performance,
even our base LE grade Sienna is the best handling minivan available
today. That flows up from LE grade to XLE,
Limited and Platinum grades. And with the XSE grade,
we ratcheted up the performance another notch.
So we're looking at the XSE here, which is our sportiest, boldest minivan.
And it's not just the exterior,
we've also done a lot of changes in the way it handles.
So we wanted to make something that was a little more engaging,
a little more confident, has less body roll.
So some of the things that we've changed on this besides the 20-inch wheels,
the shock absorbers are changed.
They have a special characteristic that makes them digressive and allows them to
be sensitive to inputs,
but still much more firm and controllable.
We have stiffer Springs,
we have stiffer stabilizer bars, and we've re-tuned the steering
system, the EPS,
so it gets a little bit more feedback when you're going around those curves.
As you know,
we've selected our Hybrid system to be the single
source for power for this vehicle.
And this was done after interviewing our customers and understanding the usage
scenes for minivans and what our customers wanted.
And what we heard was with long distance travel, fuel economy and distance
between fill ups are really two top priorities. Beyond that,
the Hybrid also brings some extra benefits.
Our new Toyota Hybrid System 2, which is in this and the Highlander,
brings direct instant power when you want it directly
in relation to your pedal inputs.
Another benefit of the Hybrid system on these minivans is for those scenes of
dropping off and picking up kids at school. You can pull up in your minivan,
wait for your kids without fuming out the exhaust because the Hybrid system will
allow you to continue heating the vehicle.
Another benefit of all Hybrid,
is that we could do the all wheel drive by the E motor in the rear.
We don't have to worry about prop shafts.
That allowed us to optimize the shape of the vehicle and lower the floor as
we've talked about before.
My favorite benefit of having 100% Hybrid is the
inverter that we offer. We have the two plug-in units for that,
both the center and the rear of the vehicle.
And that just opens up so much for this vehicle.
Hi, my name is Aaron Credo from our R&D product development division.
One of the things that we really wanted to highlight today was the all-wheel
drive system that we're offering in the all-new Sienna.
It's available on not just one grade, but every grade of the vehicle.
What the all-wheel drive system in the Sienna includes is a motor
generator that's mounted around the rear axle area.
It's actually an electric motor that's a 40 kilowatt motor that drives the rear
wheels.
The all-wheel drive system can seamlessly shift power from the front of the
vehicle to the rear at a ratio of 100% in the front zero in the
rear, all the way to 20% in the front and 80% in the rear.
The transfer of power is completely transparent and the customers won't feel any
difference when the power shifts from the front to the rear.
But what they will notice is a huge improvement in traction,
especially in the Winter time.
One of the activities that we did during our R&D development was a winter test,
which took us to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,
also through Wisconsin and into Minnesota.
On that trip we had the all-new Sienna,
as well as the current generation Sienna and some of our minivan competitors.
There was a lot of snow and ice on the trip and I can tell you the feeling was
mutual across the group,
that the all-new Sienna had the best performance out of any of the vehicles that
were with us.
Okay, here we go.
I really enjoy the way all versions of the new Sienna feel.
Smooth linear reaction of the vehicle to my input so
the steering wheel, the brakes. But in this XSE,
it takes to another level, and to me it's really fun to drive.
This is the XSE sportier grade vehicle that I'm driving right
now.
One of the things that's really apparent on this new vehicle is the handling.
As we go around a few of these curves,
it's so easy to feel the difference in body roll,
especially from the current generation. There's such a huge improvement,
I think anyone will really notice the difference.
This feels like a smaller vehicle.
Going around corners there's minimal body lean.
It handles as well as any small SUV that I've driven.
It has a sportier tuned suspension,
both the absorbers and the springs are tuned a bit sportier then some of the
other grades.
You can really feel that when we're going through some of these curves.
The 20-inch wheels also really improve the handling on this vehicle quite a bit
and it's really a lot of fun to drive. Whether you're going straight,
whether you're on a long sweeping curve on a highway,
or whether you're steering through slalom.
It's effortless. It makes me feel like a better driver.
And I've heard a lot of people say that driving the Sienna makes them feel like
a better driver.
I especially like the on-center steering field makes you feel like the one with
the road.
Also the acceleration on all new Sienna is really remarkable.
That's really one of the benefits that we get from the Toyota Hybrid system,
is that instantaneous feeling of torque.
So even with the smaller internal combustion engine we have,
coupled with the hybrid battery,
you really get a very quick feeling of acceleration and a
very good feeling of torque when you're driving the vehicle.
The Hybrid system of course gets us excellent fuel economy as well.
Our outlook on the fuel economy is 36 miles per gallon on the front-wheel
drive models and 35 miles per gallon combined on the all-wheel
drive models. It's really spectacular for a minivan. You get torque,
the moment you depress the accelerator pedal,
there's none of that lag that can happen with a conventional IC
engines.
Having the all-wheel drive hybrid system really helps with the
confidence when it comes to accelerating, whether that's merging,
whether that's passing on the freeway, it really inspires confidence.
It's immediately noticeable how controllable the brakes are.
Essentially the vehicle does exactly what you want it to
do.
So what I mean by that is the pressure that you're pushing on the brake pedal
transfers into the vehicle deceleration,
and, it's very predictive and linear. So,
as I push on the brakes, the vehicle decelerates exactly as I expect it to.
And there's no feeling of a grab or anything like that when the
regenerative system kicks in.
We've taken steps to make sure that this is comfortable, not only feeling,
but comfortable sounding.
The noise and vibration isolation on this vehicle really makes
it easy to hold conversations.
I still can't get over how far this vehicle has come.
This is really an ideal vehicle,
whether it be hauling lots of people or for those that have hobbies that require
hauling things in the back, you have the space to do those things.
But when you're not doing those things,
you're still going to want to be driving this vehicle.
You'll be surprised you're in a minivan.
This vehicle is a game changer for the minivan market.
It's like no other minivan available.
[Inaudible].