Futuristic Toyotas will highlight 2020 Olympics

TOKYO — Toyota caused heads to swivel at the last two CES technology expos in Las Vegas with static concepts of funky futuristic vehicles.

In 2020, the company says working versions of those vehicles will hit the streets when Tokyo hosts the Summer Olympics and Paralympics.

The first will be an operating version of the Concept-i, an egg-shaped electric vehicle that senses a person's emotions and talks with the driver using artificial intelligence. The Concept-i debuted in 2017 at CES.

The other will be the e-Palette, a boxcarlike, self-driving urban people mover that arrived this year at CES.

Japan's biggest carmaker is a top Olympics sponsor and the official "mobility partner" of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Toyota outlined its plans to use the Tokyo Games as a showcase for mobility technology, saying in a news release that a key priority is providing mobility for all people, especially those who cannot drive themselves.

"The freedom of being mobile is at the heart of being able to participate in society," Toyota President Akio Toyoda said in the statement. "If someone wants to take on a challenge and moving is what is preventing them from doing so, Toyota would like to help tackle that problem. We want mobility to be a possibility, not an obstacle."

Toyota said the working Concept-i will be part of an Olympics demonstration. The working e-Palette will be on call to shuttle athletes and official

Other Olympics plans include verification testing and demonstrations of Level 4 autonomous driving along the Tokyo waterfront and in areas around the city's Haneda airport.