In what promises to be a fascinating contest between industry leaders in relatively unfamiliar territory, two of this nation’s manufacturing giants, Toyota Motor Corp. and Panasonic Corp., are attempting strong advances in the housing sector.
Both firms believe there are huge opportunities ahead for energy-saving technologies, with the introduction of the so-called smart grid—a next-generation power network that will optimize supply to residential and other properties—likely to accelerate demand for such products.
Toyota and Panasonic have been pushing their subsidiaries to do more to exploit the growing preference for environment-friendly homes.
Toyota has integrated certain operations with subsidiary Toyota Home, with a view to adapting automobile-manufacturing techniques to the housing sector.
At a press conference on Oct. 5, Toyota announced a new design concept for homes that include recharging facilities for plug-in hybrid vehicles. “At long last, the integration of automobiles and homes has arrived,” Senta Morioka, president of Toyota Home, said.
The design makes use of Toyota’s electric battery technology to maximize the power efficiency of both the building and the vehicle, the firm said.
Panasonic, meanwhile, combined its most advanced technologies in an experimental “eco home” built by its PanaHome Corp. subsidiary in Higashi-Omi, Shiga Prefecture, in July.
Hoping to put the eco home on the market in fiscal 2011, PanaHome said its employees have been researching the eco home’s performance by actually living in the experimental structure.
PanaHome’s goal is for the home to produce zero carbon dioxide emissions.
Features of the design include a roof completely covered by solar cells, an interior lighting system based on organic electroluminescent (OEL) devices and walls equipped with vacuum insulation, as used in refrigerators, the company said.
Such innovation by Panasonic and Toyota reflects both firms’ long-term approach to the housing industry.
Toyota has long held a “strong interest” in the field, Toyota President Akio Toyoda said.
During the period of economic and social turmoil immediately after World War II, Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda began a prefabricated home business, which his son Shoichiro Toyoda, currently honorary chairman of Toyota, continued by setting up a housing business department in 1975.
PanaHome is the housing industry’s fifth-biggest firm in terms of sales. It reported sales of 260.3 billion yen in fiscal 2009—less than one-fifth the sales of the industry’s largest player, Daiwa House Industry Co.
With the resources of the wider Panasonic group behind it, PanaHome is “determined to soon become one of the top three” firms in the industry, PanaHome President Yasuteru Fujii has said.
Hidetaka Yoneyama, a senior researcher at private consulting firm Fujitsu Research Institute, said, “In the housing business, it’s getting hard to satisfy consumers without offering wide-ranging environment-friendly technology.
“While companies like Toyota and Panasonic can address these challenges on their own, many others will need to form partnerships that cross the boundaries between industries like housing, car manufacturing and electrical appliance manufacturing,” Yoneyama said.
