Toyota Patents Winking, Laughing, Crying Car

theodp writes "If the patent system ain't broke, don't fix it: The NY Times/IHT reports that four inventors working for Toyota in Japan have won a patent for a car that they say can help drivers communicate better by glaring angrily at another car cutting through traffic, as well as appear to cry, laugh, wink or just look around." The article goes on to describe "...a car with an antenna that wags, an adjustable body height, headlights that vary in intensity and hood slits and ornamentation designed to look like eyebrows, eyelids and tears."

Speed Buggy?

[mdrechsler]

Did anyone else think of Speed Buggy or am I the only dope that remembers that show?
http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServl et/showid-5028/Speed_Buggy/ [tvtome.com]

For those who don't know...

[jmkaza]

Herbie, the love bug [amazon.com]

Toyota Pod Concept

[MooBob]

This is just the patent for the Toyota Pod concept, featured in one of the Gran Turismo concept games. Here's a little bit more information: http://www.supercars.net/cars/2001@$Toyota@$POD%20 Conceptb.html [supercars.net]

Version 0.1

[fishwallop]

The strange-looking 2001 Toyota POD Concept [supercars.net] seems to have been a first cut at the emotional car (e.g. light panels turn red to indicate frustration, blue to indicate "sadness" at being out of gas, etc.) The concept car doesn't have the "eybrows", but does have an antenna it can wag to indicate happiness.

Re:What I want to know

[RyatNrrd]

P.S. I get really incensed by the ads that are running right now -- I forget whose -- where the company claims to have 're-invented the wheel', 'rethought the car from the ground up', and 'come up with something completely revolutionary'. Then they show you a picture and it's... a sedan. Same as every other car on the road. Whoop-de-fucking-do.

...And it has an internal combustion engine of traditional Victorian design, and it runs on petrol. I couldn't agree more. If they really were to 'reth[ink] the car from the ground up,' maybe they'd be able to fix a few of the major MAJOR problems with the current design.

Nah, pay the engineers to put eyebrows on the fucking thing instead.

Re:Is This a Hoax???

[m4k3r]

You've messed up the patent number slightly. The article refers to patent # 6,757,593 [uspto.gov]