Launched in 2014, the project has now covered four of the world's continents.
Besides Toyota employees, members from Suzuki Motor Corp, Hino Motors Ltd, and Toyota Auto Body Co Ltd also participated in the Africa stage; a total of 76 people covered 10,600km in two months.
The team drove across Africa's diverse and wide-ranging roads, where they experienced first-hand the harsh conditions in which vehicles were used.
As a result, team members were moved to consider what it meant to make "ever-better cars," and exchanged views with their colleagues.
Driving across a variety of harsh, unpaved roads beset by severe unevenness, sharp stones, corrugated road surfaces, and desert, the team was made to recognise the value of reliability, durability, and comfort.
Even on paved surfaces, Africa presented a unique road environment: long straights, frequent animal crossings, large potholes that appear out of nowhere, speed bumps, and overtaking by many heavy, overloaded trucks.
These circumstances impressed upon the team the importance of braking performance, high-speed stability, and power and torque.
The 5 Continents Drive Project is a genchi genbutsu project (where employees go to the source to get the facts) carried out under the umbrella of Toyota Gazoo Racing.
Toyota employees from Japan team up with local affiliates, take the wheels of the cars themselves, and drive the roads used daily by their customers.
By participating in the project, team members increase their knowledge of the world's roads, listen to customer feedback, encounter global cultures first-hand, and together find solutions to numerous problems and challenges.
Such experiences enable them to hone their intuition for making ever-better cars in a manner that cannot be replicated at a desk or on test courses, and thereby contribute to the development of human resources.
The 5 Continents Drive Project commenced in Australia in 2014, then moved to North America in 2015, Latin America in 2016, Europe in 2017, and Africa in 2018.
Since the project started, 556 members from Japan and overseas markets have covered 99,600km over 399 days.
