Why green is gold at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games
The most environmentally friendly Olympics ever, the summer games will raise the bar for transportation, urban development, and public events.
Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, is the official transport partner this summer providing vehicles for Olympic and Paralympic athletes, organisers, journalists, and spectators. Rather than fill Paris with petrol and diesel vehicles that could reverse the clean air improvements made by their low emission zone, they’ve focused on EV solutions.
Paris 2024 will have just 50% of the carbon footprint of previous Games. Read on to find out how they’ve achieved this ambitious goal, and what it might mean for your own Toyota!
- Toyota and the Olympics: A winning team
- Toyota’s specialty vehicles for sprinting athletes to their games
- An EV and hybrid fleet, for good
- Olympians of the Toyota lineup
- Do you drive a model in the Olympic fleet?
- How to track your Toyota’s value
Toyota and the Olympics: A winning team
Toyota is the first-ever mobility partner of the Olympics, and the exclusive transport partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games this year. Providing transport for athletes, journalists, and organisers is a tall order. Here’s how they’re doing it.
Toyota’s specialty vehicles for sprinting athletes to their games
The most innovative requirements have been for getting Olympic and Paralympic athletes to the games. They’ll be based in housing in Saint-Denis, a suburb north of the city.
Here’s what you can expect to see in some Games coverage, or perhaps in person if you’re lucky enough to have tickets.
Accessible People Movers (APMs):
Toyota will deliver 250 of these battery-powered vehicles this summer.
These innovative vehicles are low-speed, short distance electric vehicles – a little like fancy, next-gen golf buggies with two passenger rows and a driver row.
With a range of 62 miles and a max speed of just over 12 miles per hour, they offer last-mile services on the venue sites for people with reduced mobility. In addition, they’ll allow organisers to move small goods across the Games, and provide emergency relief at all times.
Toyota’s APMs were used in Tokyo for the last Games. They’ve been redesigned for Paris 2024 to transport athletes, visitors, spectators, and staff with reduced mobility around the event venues and Olympic and Paralympic Village.
Wheelchair e-pullers:
In addition, Toyota has unveiled a wheelchair e-puller for the Games. With a range of just 15.5 miles, this tech is also a ‘last-mile’ solution to help people get around venues. They’ll be powered by the KINTO Share app.
The e-puller converts a classic mechanical wheelchair into a battery-powered electric mobility solution, giving more freedom of movement to wheelchair users.
50 will be available in the village and 150 at the opening ceremony.
C+ Walk for seated and standing transportation:
An electric mobility scooter, the C+ Walk exists in standing and seated rider designs.
For the Paris 2024 games, these are primarily provided for employees with disabilities, enabling them to move freely around the Organising Committee’s headquarters.
KINTO ride-share service:
In addition to providing the official fleet vehicles for Paris 2024, Toyota is supporting Paris 2024 staff with its innovative KINTO Share ride-sharing service.
This fleet of EVs and hybrids allows the Games organisers to get around the city and the Olympic village easily, without any emissions.
An EV and hybrid fleet, for good:
In total Toyota will provide a passenger vehicle fleet of more than 2,650 electrified vehicles.
This is to support their goal of reducing vehicle carbon emissions at Paris 24 by 50% compared to previous Games. With nearly 60% of the official fleet being produced locally, it’s a call for more sustainable scaled transport operations worldwide.
They will all remain in Paris after the games, increasing existing taxi fleets and providing adapted transport options for the city. In an age where it’s hard for urban development to be as innovative as the tech world, this is a major contribution.
The designs for the Paris 2024 car fleet take inspiration from iconic visual cues from the games themselves as well as French culture. The vehicles will feature glossy banners and matt trademarks, and be colour-coordinated to their engine types.
🔵 500 hydrogen-cell EVs:
You’ll be able to spot the blue-coloured hydrogen-powered, or fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) Mirai vehicles. Their blue colour represents water, the only emission made by hydrogen vehicles. After the games, these 500 cars will join the Paris hydrogen taxi fleet.
🟢 1,150 battery EVs:
Green is for battery electric vehicles, for obvious reasons. Toyota will provide about a thousand of their bZ4X, Proace, and Lexus RZ models. Additionally, you’ll spot 150 green wheelchair-accessible Toyota Proace Verso vehicles to support the mobility of the Olympic and Paralympic family members in wheelchairs.
🟣 1,000 hybrids:
The purple-coloured vehicles whizzing around central Paris will be Toyota’s fleet of hybrids and plug-in hybrids. These will include the RAV4, Toyota Corolla TS, Yaris Cross, and Highlander models.
Olympians of the Toyota lineup:
Do you drive a Toyota? Curious to know whether its value is looking more gold, silver, or bronze?
The world’s largest automaker, Toyota’s a firm favourite on Motorway. Its impressive lineup is wide, from compact city cars to SUVs and even buses. It also owns luxury line Lexus.
One major market share, though, is their hybrid and EV lineup. Before Tesla took over, the Prius made Toyota the biggest mass-market green innovator. Though Tesla has overtaken their sales and taken EV innovation in a different direction, Toyota still sells a huge amount of hybrids.
In fact, Toyota hybrids have historically outsold diesel models by 300% on Motorway.
Do you drive a model in the Olympic fleet?
How to track your Toyota’s value
Are you inspired to see what your Toyota could be worth now, and in the near future?
Track its ongoing value for free with our free Car Value Tracker tool. You’ll get monthly insights on whether your value’s increasing, holding, or decreasing – and the changes are often not what drivers expect to see. If you keep a careful watch on your value, you can choose to sell at a particularly strong time for your model.
If you are thinking of selling your Toyota, simply enter your reg on Motorway to see how much yours could fetch today.