Toyota approached us at George P. Johnson with the opportunity to design and build an engagement for the upcoming production release of the Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Most people are unfamiliar with how the technology works, and this engagement was meant to educate, as well as get people more comfortable with the idea of fuel cells.

Our creative centered on distilling complex technology into simple, easy to understand pieces that can be taken in one-by-one. Each part should have physical and digital interactives, as well as some type of 3-dimensional vertical piece for visibility.

The rendering above shows all 4 stations along with the chassis display.  These stations can be repositioned depending on the usage, and be experienced in any order. Let's go into some more detail about the experience itself.

This is the Mixing Station. Here, the attendees pull a bar across the table that pushes virtual Hydrogen and Oxygen molecules into a fuel cell as part of the video content. Then, running lights shine along the table surface leading to the by-products of the reaction, electricity and water. As the reaction is taking place, the light bulb shines and the water in the tank begins to bubble. This was a simple way to illustrate the chemical reaction at the heart of a fuel cell vehicle.

This is the fuel cell station. This station focuses on the fuel cell itself and how it integrates into the chassis of the vehicle. The main part of this station is an abstracted physical chassis placed underneath a transparent LCD touch-sensitive overlay. The content on the LCD is keyed to the location of the chassis and describes how the fuel cell powers the vehicle. On the side is a static visual representation of the fuel cell layers.  These layers then come to life as part of the digital content on the LCD

This is the Range and Infrastructure Station. The purpose of this station is to combat range anxiety and to educate attendees on the mechanics of filling up a hydrogen tank. Attendees get to physically compare gas, electric, and hydrogen fueling nozzles. Also, there is an interactive map which shows current and planned hydrogen fueling stations, along with a range display that shows how far the car will travel from anywhere on one tank of gas.

Above is the safety station. One of the main objectives of this engagement is to get people comfortable with the idea of driving with a hydrogen tank. This station shows a stylized hydrogen tank cutaway that has capacitive touch. 4 people can use the station at the same time, and when they touch the tank, content plays on the table in the quadrant where they touched. This station is my favorite because it has no moving parts, and the 3D aspect, the physical aspect, and the touch aspect are unified in a sleek, interesting display.

Above is the existing chassis display which we were able to use as the main attract.

Above is an orthographic view of the content suggestions for each station. This engagement was a big success for Toyota, educating the public and increasing dwell time in the Toyota space.