It’s the summer of 2017. GM and Toyota launch a joint world ITS-Park introduction program. They launch sales of smartcars with an ITS-Park option in ten cities around the world – in the U.S., Japan, Europe and China. The two companies have a recent historical linkage, beginning in 1984, of cooperation in a joint manufacturing program called NUMMI in Fremont, California. They have now chosen to renew that cooperation as the fastest way to launch ITS-Park option sales around the world.
Lexus/Toyota and Opel/GM dealers are selling Lexus, Camry, Cadillac, Opel and Buick smartcar models equipped with ITS-Park. Each dealer has set aside a special section of his surface parking lot as an ITS-Park area. Potential customers are able to come to the dealers and drive one of those smartcar models to the ITS-Park section; exit the car; watch the car drive unattended into the parking area; park in an empty space; remain there for two minutes or so; back out and return to the originating point; and go through the whole routine over again. Needless to say, this running demonstration program has become a big attraction, not only for prospective car buyers, but for the general population throughout each city.
But what good is that ITS-Park option if there’s no place to use it? Participating dealers have simultaneously launched a large number of application programs across each city. Restaurants, shopping centers and sports stadiums have been subsidized to set aside their own ITS-Park areas. Each area is re-striped to narrower space sizes; fenced off for exclusive ITS-Park use; and tied into remote reservation services. As part of the promotion effort, purchasers of the ITS-Park option are given free restaurant dinners, reduced cost and/or free game tickets to sporting events and entered in lucrative shopping drawings at the involved shopping malls. Again, restaurant patrons, shopping center visitors, and sports game attendees, along with the general public, stand mesmerized for long periods, as they watch drivers arrive, get out of their smartcar and see the car park itself.
In addition, the two companies have contracted with private parking garage operators to have an ITS-Park facility constructed in a high visibility area in each participating city. Patrons who purchase a car with the ITS-Park option are given free parking for the next year at that garage. The promotional parking lots and garages all operate using an ITS-Park standard for smartcars, approved by ITS America two years previous.
The GM/Toyota introduction program is a resounding success, garnering extensive world press and Internet coverage, including many personal interviews with satisfied car owners. The companies sell a combined total of over 50,000 ITS-Park equipped smartcars besides experiencing increases in sales of other non-equipped cars. The launch effort is reported on as one of the fastest worldwide introductions of a new car option ever. The program is planned to continue for another four years, opening in ten more cities each year. In addition, other car manufacturers plan to begin introducing their cars with the ITS-Park option; and garage operators are lining up locations, and working with city planners, to build ITS-Park garages to deal with the rapidly growing demand. Projections indicate that well over one million ITS-Park equipped smartcars will be on the road, and using newly built ITS-Park facilities, at the end of the five year introduction period
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