New Toyota Launch Set to Change Our Relationship With the Future

Created in partnership with Toyota.

When was the last time anyone invented anything that really and substantially improved your life? Both offline and on, our worlds have never been more bunged up with gimmicky fluff, whether it’s relentless promotional videos for air-fryers on TikTok, or grinning grifters trying to flog you ‘anti-procastination’ medication between every third Instagram Story.

For consumers, nothing has really hit since the arrival of the current standard of smartphone. Most of the new inventions since then have felt like grubby rehashes of tech dreamed up in the 1960s: robot girlfriends, sunglasses with a camera in them. If they’re not slightly dubious retro-futurist props, they’re noisy fads with a lifespan shorter than the average mayfly (it’s extremely dispiriting to think of all the wardrobe space being gobbled up by discarded pairs of Big Red Boots). These things don’t necessarily improve life. They just make it more stressful.

Enter Toyota’s new ‘e-collection’—a brand new sextet of concepts set to be unveiled imminently, all with a laser-guided focus on real-world functionality. Each finds the Japanese car brand moving off-grid, roving into unexpected new spaces.

The first of the new Toyota concepts is the ThinkTent*, a portable, solar-powered workspace that lets you move through life like some kind of chronically online cyberpunk snail, taking your (surprisingly spacious) office with you on your back wherever you care to wander.

If you’d like a companion, look no further than the ChirpM8: the second of Toyota’s new e-collection concepts and the first digital pet that actually looks after your mental health, an airborne compadre that follows you around, cleansing the tense, torrid city air with relaxing chirrups and coos. Combining sleek hypermodern design with the timeless beauty of birdsong (they’ve been singing the same songs for millions of years; they’re literally living dinosaurs), the ChirpM8 is a buddy in a world of bullies, and a concept that everyone could use in their lives.

These days, most city dwellers aren’t forced to make the laborious commute into the office and back every day. But how do you maintain the sanctity of the home environment when it’s also the place where you put in the hard yards? The AdjusTable has got you covered; another new concept from Toyota that can transform from ergonomic work-desk to dining plinth at the push of a button. It’s versatile, it’s modular, and it will keep that work-life balance firmly in check.

There are, of course, other things to consider when working from home, hidden costs that you likely never even considered in your former life as an office drone. WFH energy bills can be a real drag—but they need not be if the DualGuitar is around. This modern update on the 20th century’s most iconic musical instrument generates enough energy to charge any device in the family home, transforming music into financial savings. Plus it’s built with sustainability in mind, so that every song it’s used to play is another step forward into a brighter, greener future.

An unfortunate collateral of modern tech innovations is a tendency to seal you off and away from wider society. Without realising it, sometimes we can find ourselves trapped in a gilded cage, surrounded in homes full of glimmering new technology while our relationship with the outside world deteriorates. AWD sneakers are the perfect remedy, another new concept from the geniuses at Toyota that use the company’s famed tyre-tread grip to propel wearers along city streets faster than ever before. The AWD—that’s All Wheel Drive for short—are a multipurpose footwear that ensures top-tier performance in all weathers, tailor-made for the digital nomad who might find themselves working in rainy London one day, and sun-scorched Barcelona the next.

Are you one of those people who would rather mow someone else’s lawn than check in on your latest screen time stats? Break the hypnotic spell cast by your devices with Toyota’s Notification Nails. A cutting-edge innovation set to revolutionize daily routines the world over, the Notification Nails glow different colors to indicate different types of alert, allowing users to go about their day until they light up. A wireless beauty product designed to keep the noise of the online world literally at arm’s length, they are both a way to keep abreast of your mum’s dog’s latest heated interactions with the postman, and the logical first step towards transhumanism.

Intrigued by these visions of the future? Currently, further information on this Toyota tech is limited. To ensure you’re kept in the loop, sign up for the official launch on December 12th.

*Important note: none of these products are available to buy, because none of them actually exist