DENSO Corporation

Yeah, yeah.

Denso is one of Toyota's biggest part suppliers.

And in the early 90s, its factories were scanning several barcodes on each box of parts because one barcode couldn't hold enough information.

Do you imagine that? Like, here's a part.

Yeah, that would be lame.

I could see that Toyota would flip out.

So anyways, an engineer at Denso, Masahiro Hara, started work on a better code in 1992 with a colleague, and Denso released it in 1994.

QR stands for quick response code.

to themselves.

You know, Michelle, you get off a plane in Europe and one of the first ads you see in the airports, whether it's Frankfurt or Milan, is an ad for the BYD Denso, which is their EV.

And everyone's like, well, if only Detroit or Europe could innovate, they could compete.

You can't compete with three dollar an hour labor.

Good news.

Um, and it's not an HP4 by Denso that was in a Duramax prior.

So we'll have to wait and see.

Um, the chief engineer of the Duramax when asked at that very first event by multiple journalists, he wasn't gonna go into a lot of detail.

That includes traditional robots, co-bots, and humanoids.

Toyota will get 150,000, while suppliers in its kairetsu like Denso and Aisin will get 250,000.

In order to make accommodations for the robots, Toyota expects to spend $6.4 billion a year starting in 2028 to modernize its manufacturing operations.

But here's the thing, the robots will be a relatively small part of that investment.

Not to sound like, oh, we used to have a country sort of thing, but like Jesus, that's crazy to think about.

Versus like the Denso Toyota Edition coil box that is pure utilitarianism.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah.

yeah it is I mean I'm just going to look at an ignition coil price you know I mean we should probably do that to make myself feel better

uh huh

oh okay uh huh yep Denso the OEM part $43 okay

$43, $43, yeah.

So, uh, John Shook hired Art Smalley.

And, you know, so it was very baffling to me because, um, how does a f- how does someone become, like him, become a, a really amazing vibe coder? And it turns out that in 1986, uh, he was, um, doing engine design at Denso, which was the, uh, kind of the, uh, power plant, uh, sp- spin out from Toyota.

This is a very high precision work.

And central services, IT would never help them.

So I met, my trip to Japan was about eight days.

I met with senior governmental leaders in Japan, but perhaps more importantly, I met with the companies that are based in Japan that also have big footprints in here in Michigan, companies like Denso and iSheen and Toyota and several others that have been in Michigan and have employed Michiganders for 40 plus years.

That's really good that you were able to do that.

And it's interesting, I think, to hear from them.

That's what it looked like.

It looked like this Denso Z9 GT.

And it's all because they're trying to tap into this enthusiast market of where they've gone.

In fact, we've spied it here driving next to what I believe is probably the Manti facility at the Nürburgring.

They're like, but why? Surely you want all the tech on.

It's like, no, we want to drive the car in its purest form, as you say, after getting to see what the systems are actually like.

So, yeah, this Denso R Racing has potential.

And I don't know exactly how, whether it was, you know, all developed in China, whether they had some European involvement with the suspension.