Wheelchair-friendly Toyota Prius

All the big car companies are making wheel chair friendly cars. If you go to the annual health care trade show in Tokyo, you see that all the major Japanese automobile makers are present. However, Japan still lags behind Europe when it comes to creating a wheel chair friendly environment and Japanese wheel chairs are not very good.

As a wheelchair user, I find Toyota is being a bit disingenuous about this “robotic” roof rack for wheelchairs.

1. The concept of roof rack for wheelchairs has been around since the 1960s—It’s a mostly forgotten, dead-end design that is hated by users for being cumbersome and prone to jamming (the handicapped user has no way to stand up and unjam the device)

2. This roof rack requires an X-folding type of wheelchair, which are old-fashioned and heavy (3-8 kg heavier). Modern wheelchairs fold flat after popping the wheels off (quick release hubs) and would not work this roof rack system.

3. Independent wheelchair users prefer to roll up as fast as possible to the drivers door, fling themselves in the driver’s seat, pop the wheels off the chair, and throw wheels and collapsed chair into the front passenger’s seat and foot-well. My best time is 20 seconds. More severely disabled wheelchair users use a van with a wheelchair lift. Nobody wants that Toyota roof rack system (which looks like an OEM or copy failed systems from the States and UK).

4. The best car “wheelchair system” in Japan is no system at all–Just a standard Honda Odyssey with the mainstream options for a power sliding door, a few of the passenger seats removed and 180 degree swiveling drivers seat.

5. The Toyota Prius (aerodynamic drag of cd 0.26) with that huge roof rack added would create enough drag to eliminate the advantage of having a hybrid drive-train. Prius owners have had their mileage drop from 47 to 36 mpg (US) with one kayak on top and this open-bottom roof rack is wider and less aerodynamically shaped than a kayak.