In a business built on expertise—deep, domain-specific knowledge of product development—the rise of AI challenges some of our most fundamental assumptions. If expertise is suddenly more widely accessible and automated, we must ask: How do we, as experts, continue to differentiate ourselves? How do we evolve in a world where information and insights are no longer scarce but instantly retrievable?

Scott Thielman - CTO and Co-Founder of Product Creation Studio

That was the starting point for me. I began asking my team: How are we using these tools? What's happening under the hood? It turned out quite a bit. Our software engineers—those writing code for embedded systems or user interfaces—were already tapping into AI to debug, generate test scripts, and validate their logic. "You mean it's building code?" I marvelled. And that was my moment. I had to jump in.

I'm a mechanical engineer, not a programmer. But I wondered if AI could enable me to instantly become a JavaScript expert. At least enough of one to build a checkers game. One May 2023 afternoon later, I had a working prototype and an epiphany on par with the first time I saw Netscape in 1995. Watching ChatGPT create functional scripts was a personal eye-opener. I saw, firsthand, how AI democratizes access to tools and knowledge. Practically, it's no longer about whether you've studied a subject for years; it's about whether you are curious enough to create the first prompt and follow through on the necessary iterations to achieve something new.

Editor's Note: This essay is part of a new series exploring how AI is transforming the way physical products are imagined, designed, and built. Hardware is the New Salt will spotlight several thinkers and makers at the intersection of AI and product design and their insights into this dynamic technology ecosystem. This series is supported by Enzzo, who offers an AI-first product development platform created to support the next generation of builders.

I don't mean to imply that this last realization settled in instantly. Initially, my reaction to AI was to fear the new world order. But over time, that gave way to curiosity—and now, optimism. What we've gained is not just a faster way to code or draft, but a fundamentally new way to access, structure, and navigate knowledge. In our line of work, where entrepreneurs walk in the door with wildly diverse backgrounds—surgeons, chemists, software developers—AI lets me rapidly get up to speed. In just a few prompts, I can synthesize enough of their world to ask better questions and add more value. We hear about frontier labs working to "align" their models to expectations of etiquette, bias and safety. A consulting firm must re-align constantly, with customer A talking fluid dynamics and customer B diving deep on medical power systems. The faster we can get past the vocabulary to a place of shared understanding of priorities the sooner we get to the meaningful human interactions. Used correctly, AI facilitates this, and that is transformative.

There's no question AI democratizes design. Anyone with the right prompt can gain vocabulary, context, and ideas in fields they've never worked in. That can be extraordinary—or chaotic. The beauty is that AI can organize disordered inputs, establish structure, and frame problems in new ways. Where we used to spend the first two weeks of a product engagement just framing the challenge, AI can now do that in minutes.

Am I upset about losing that billable time? Not at all. The real value lies in moving faster toward the next decision. Product development is, after all, a series of decisions. Use metal or glass? Mold or machine? Merge or separate functions? Our job is to design and learn until we can answer those questions with confidence.

People always ask about speed. It's become the headline feature of AI. But speed is nuanced. What I've seen isn't that teams want to crank out more products—they want to do one product better. That's where I see AI having the most significant impact: allowing us to go deeper, not just faster.

AI is already helping in the early and late stages of product development—intake, analysis, communication. Need to summarize data for stakeholders? Explain performance to a cross-functional team? We have great tools that really help by reducing time spent on those tasks. With that assistance we gain space to explore more options, test more hypotheses, and build a stronger product.

But let's be honest: there's still inertia. Product development isn't just a process—it's a culture. Expertise is built over decades. Teams rely on legacy workflows. And even when AI tools promise efficiency, they still require human trust to be used effectively.

One of the biggest hurdles is trust. As someone who's immersed myself in these tools—building games, teaching courses, trying to stay at the bleeding edge—I've seen both the power and the pitfalls. Engineers are right to be cautious. Hallucinations are real. Bias is real. You can chase a bad idea for hours before realizing it's just well-worded nonsense.

To build trust, we need processes that treat AI as a collaborator, not a decider. It should generate ideas, not conclusions. Experts still need to review, refine, and approve. The signature on the final product still belongs to a human. That accountability doesn't go away.

So, where are we in the AI adoption curve? We're in toddlerhood—but what a toddler! AI already shows an astonishing capacity to translate, reason, and organize. It's skipping grades—but it hasn't yet graduated. We have lacked the right tooling to apply the intelligence to the engineering problems. We don't have a "K–12" system for AI to work within but it is coming fast with advancing model capabilities like function calling. The infrastructure—across engineering domains like thermal modelling, materials, and mechanisms—is still catching up.

Yet AI isn't like past design technologies. This isn't AutoCAD replacing Vellum, swapping a pencil for a mouse, or replacing a machine shop with a 3D printer. Those changes were significant but specific and still fit within the development frameworks and paradigms. How to use AI in product design is murkier but the opportunities to augment how we work are everywhere. It may not just be a new tool to replace an old one; it may enable workflows that never existed before. Neural nets are systems that produce outputs without clear explainability, surfacing ideas and insights in unexpected, sometimes unreliable ways. That unpredictability is both a power and a challenge. We don't yet know precisely where it's headed. And that's the source of unease.

AI's most profound impact may not fit within existing workflow paradigms at all. While it's clear that LLMs can enhance discrete development steps like problem definition, research, and prototyping, the deeper question remains: what happens when AI begins generating solutions directly, seemingly from the ether? In the same way that diffusion models create recognizable images by iteratively removing noise, future AI development systems might leap to solutions without following traditional engineering workflows. This isn't just a new tool replacing an old one—it's the potential for entirely new approaches to solution-finding that could bypass steps we've long considered essential.

Yet the potential is real. AI will never fully imagine the future—that remains our job. But it can be the assistant that helps us arrive faster, better equipped, and more informed. Like Jarvis from Iron Man, AI's promise is in augmentation. You still need the human in the loop—asking the questions, steering the direction, making the calls.

The Jarvis paradigm—AI as an augmenting partner rather than a replacement—remains my north star. Our partnership with Enzzo, to provide product management automation via our website, comes out of that same augmentation vision. And project Nancy represents another step toward this vision: an AI companion that knows our project history, understands our clients' contexts, and surfaces relevant insights at decision points. But true partnership requires trust built through consistent, reliable collaboration.

Experiences with Enzzo and Nancy have taught me that successful AI integration isn't about replacing human judgment—it's about maximizing that judgment with better information. When teams can access the right context at the right moment, they make better decisions. When they can explore more options without drowning in possibilities, they arrive at stronger solutions. The signature on the final product still belongs to a human, but that human is now working with unprecedented support.

And maybe, in that evolving partnership between human insight and artificial intelligence, we'll design not just faster products, but solutions to problems we never thought possible.

About the author: Scott Thielman, PhD is Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Product Creation Studio, where for over 25 years he has led product development for medical device innovators including Olympus, Cardinal Health, Advanced Bionics, and LumiThera. His work spans critical medical technologies—from deep brain stimulation systems and insulin delivery devices to ophthalmic therapy devices and automated molecular therapy systems. At Product Creation Studio, Scott has guided teams through complex development challenges including human factors research, design for manufacturing, and regulatory preparation for Class II and Class III medical devices. Notable projects include LumiThera's Valeda photobiomodulation device (successfully acquired by Alcon in 2025), neurosurgical repair devices, and needle-free vaccine delivery systems. Scott's technical foundation in control systems and optimization—developed during his PhD work at the University of Washington on electromagnetic suspension and composite flywheel design—provided early exposure to the mathematical principles underlying modern AI. Since 2023, he has actively integrated AI tools into Product Creation Studio's workflows, developing custom applications for CRM reporting and proposal automation. As an Affiliate Assistant Professor at UW Bothell, he created and taught a course on AI in Product Engineering, helping students apply these tools to real-world engineering challenges

Recent Eindhoven grad Aaron Preyer "is a designer with a fascination for movement and transformation," his bio reads. As evidence, check out his exploratory Blooming Furniture project:

Blooming Furniture is a collection of transformative objects and furniture that respond to touch and interaction. This transformation is made possible by an internal mechanism sensitive to pressure and changes in weight. Each piece is uniquely defined by its function and material composition. Imagine a piece with an upholstered top and metal base that shifts effortlessly between two forms, like a pouf or side table that blossoms into a lounge chair.

The concept was born from an exploration of mechanics, inspired by a deep fascination with movement and the natural ability of plants and trees to grow, bloom, and evolve. In these designs, the technical elements that enable transformation are not hidden, they are celebrated. The mechanism becomes part of the visual language and is leading for the aesthetic and form.

This innovative chair effortlessly transforms from an upholstered table or ottoman into a comfortable armchair. The base, crafted from aluminum, contains a mechanism that enables the transformation. The upper section is luxuriously upholstered, and both the fabric and the color of the anodized aluminum base can be fully customized.

In the video, you can see how the large surface responds to pressure and weight, activating the mechanism and transforming the chair's shape. A playful combination of functionality and design.Research and collection Blooming Furniture emerged from my research into moving mechanisms within furniture and objects. Through extensive experimentation, I applied this mechanism to a variety of designs. My goal is to move beyond a single chair and create a complete, recognizable collection.

Render and design of an interactive wall shelf, currently in development:

At present, the series already includes several test models, such as coffee tables, a candlestick, a wall shelf, and a fruit bowl. Each piece demonstrates in its own way how movement and functionality come together in a playful and innovative design.

Ronan Bouroullec's sensitive use of concrete makes Brutalism look, well, brutish. His Ancora collection of tables seem impossibly light and airy.

"The collection of tables and low tables owes its name to the section of the base. The curved edge joins the structural element of the rib creating the shape of an anchor (in Italian 'ancora'), a design that balances aesthetics and function."

The tables are available as standalone units, suitable for both indoor and outdoor…

…and as bases for tables topped in either glass, concrete sheets or (boo) MDF with oak veneer.

The Ancora collection is in production by Magis.

Starlink currently has around 8,000 satellites in orbit. These deliver broadband to underserved areas—if users set up a Starlink dish and router at their location.

However, the 600 most-recently launched of those satellites have special equipment that can beam broadband directly to standard LTE-equipped smartphones. They're basically Wi-Fi towers in space.

Starlink began providing this Direct to Cell (D2C) service last year, enabling text messaging in remote areas across five continents. "The service works with existing LTE phones wherever you can see the sky – no changes to hardware, firmware, or special apps are required," the company says.

Now the company has announced plans to launch a further 15,000 D2C-enabled satellites, meaning that by next year, users will be able to have true full-service broadband delivered straight to their phones, no dish required.

This will be a gamechanger. Never mind being able to stream movies in the middle of a lake, participate in video calls from a mountaintop or play games in the desert; the service is literally saving lives. D2C can "connect millions of people around the world in places that have never had cellular connectivity before, and even during emergencies when terrestrial systems are impacted," the company explains.

"Following hurricanes, severe flooding and wildfires in the United States, Starlink Direct to Cell powered life-saving connectivity. In those events alone, more than 1.5 million people were able to communicate with Direct to Cell service when terrestrial networks were down, millions of SMS messages were sent and received, and hundreds of Wireless Emergency Alerts that otherwise would not have been received were successfully delivered."Additionally, people outside of terrestrial cellular network coverage have been able to receive assistance from emergency services when they previously would not. In New Zealand, a woman who came upon a car crash that happened in a cellular dead zone was able to text her partner the location of the accident through a Starlink Direct to Cell connection, and first responders were on the scene within minutes of the text being sent."

"More than 50 percent of the world's land mass remains uncovered by terrestrial services," the company says. Their goal is to "ultimately eliminate mobile dead zones around the world."

Here's what we looked at this week:

The evolution of the HiAce, Japan's work truck.

Hypershell's elegant leg exoskeleton for running, cycling, hiking, etc.

Dom Johnson's mobile, wireless sewing machine workstation.

Smart design: The MagMaster universal tool holder, and a lightweight on-body tool storage system by Holstery.

Casio's G-Shock Nano fits on your finger.

An insane Australian invention: The Snowtunnel, a skier's version of a wave pool.

An F1 cockpit gaming chair by Hungarian ID firm Flying Objects.

Nick Sharpes' "gamechanging" drill bits.

A shuttered Japanese prison is re-opening as a luxury hotel.

By James Bruton and Johannes Matsson (separately), robots that use balls to get around.

The flexible-use Penguin x MOEBE Book Stand.

Fyous' incredible "Polymorphic Molding:" A pin-based mold you can reset into any shape.

How would you guess these coathooks are mounted?

Fredericia releases a 75th anniversary edition of Børge Mogensen's Hunting Chair.

In 1950, Danish furniture designer Børge Mogensen designed this Hunting Chair:

The low-slung chair perhaps owes a debt to both Kaare Klint (whom Mogensen once worked for) and the Adirondack Chair, but it's undoubtedly its own thing.

Some 75 years later, the chair is still in production. But Danish manufacturer Fredericia Furniture is also releasing a special 75th anniversary edition, this one made of Ash, and with dark brown saddle leather. (The standard production version is made of Oak.)

"The ash version of The Hunting Chair was produced only once before in the late 1970s," the company explains, "in collaboration with Mogensen and Andreas Graversen, then-owner of Fredericia. This rare edition has remained part of the Graversen family's private collection until now."

The Ash version will still be rare: They're only making 75 of the Anniversary Edition chairs.

This expectation-subverting Wall Hook 60° is by furniture designer Tatsuki Kokubo.

How would you guess it's attached to the wall?

This is one of those things that I couldn't figure out, but which seems obvious once revealed:

The support comes from both the screws and the dowels touching the wall.

It's not in production; Kokubo designed it for the home of a private client.

Here's a simple idea, well-executed. This book stand was designed by Danish design brand MOEBE for book publisher Penguin.

Made of stainless steel, it can either be used as a bookend, a book stand, or a page-holding stand.

They're available in three colors or in their natural finish.

The Penguin x MOEBE Book Stand was created to commemorate Penguin's 90th anniversary, and they run €57 (USD $65).

Whether you're vacuum forming, casting polyurethane or doing a composite layup (i.e. a bent lamination or fiberglass layup), you need a mold. Creating the mold can be time-consuming and expensive, and of course you need a place to store the mold when it's not in use. However, British company Fyous has up-ended this model with their PolyMorphic Mold.

Rather than static molds, the company has developed a reconfigurable pin-based system. You feed your 3D model into their machine, which takes about 20 minutes to set the pins up.

Each pin can handle 6 tons of pressure. You then place the mold into your forming machine of choice and mold away. When you're done, the mold can simply be reset, ready to take a different shape.

Here's their system being used to create a three-part mold for foam-injection orthopedic footwear lasts:

Freaking incredible. And the mold is, the company says, "infinitely reusable."

British toy designer and engineer James Bruton had this vision, for a unique kind of motorbike:

He worked out, in CAD, how it could possibly operate:

Then he built the darn thing.

"I built an omni-directional ball-wheeled bike. This bike balances like a Segway sideways, and drives in all directions, which makes it the ultimate drift bike! I used five ODrive brushless motors driving omni-directional wheels, running on large plastic balls which are intended for circus acts to balance on. Active control keeps it upright and twist grips are used to drive and steer."

Bruton's work inspired Swedish 3D artist Johannes Matsson, who built a much smaller-scale version to see what it could do:

What I find fascinating about both of these designs, is that they use a commonly-available ball as the tires. It's not difficult to imagine a future where companies sell droids that resemble the upper portions of the two designs above, and the user supplies a basketball or soccer ball as the riding platform.

Most clocks reveal time through simple rotation. The Moiré Clock, designed by Felix Cooper and Amber Li for their collective STATION Design, takes a more theatrical approach. It uses overlapping patterns to create a visual phenomenon where numbers appear to scale and shift as the clock face rotates through a stationary filter.

The moiré effect—that trippy interference pattern you get when overlapping grids or lines—isn't often employed for functional purposes. But Cooper and Li saw potential in marrying the effect's kinetic properties with clock movement. Hours materialize and fade as the rotating paper face passes through the filter, creating subtle animations every few minutes.

The project started as a custom glyph set testing moiré animations, then evolved into a clock body using a single strip of metal encasing the entire face. It's an elegant solution that prioritizes material efficiency—a necessity when you're manufacturing everything yourself.

And they do mean everything. STATION Design operates with serious commitment to vertical integration and local sourcing. The steel comes from offcuts at Metals Supermarket in Cranberry, Pennsylvania. The paper is milled by French Paper Company in Niles, Michigan. Even the quartz movements are from Takane, the sole American manufacturer. They also produced three stainless steel versions for durability.

Cooper, an industrial designer, and Li, a graphic designer and typographer, brought complementary skills—his mechanical expertise meeting her graphic sensibility. Both are recent Carnegie Mellon grads who founded STATION along with Parrish André and Francesco Mauro, two other designers from their program.

The collective's first product drop sold out completely. Their approach mirrors streetwear's limited release model, creating scarcity while keeping production manageable. The line includes wallets from scrap leather, train whistles from reclaimed shipping container lumber, and a RISO-printed calendar on Michigan-milled paper.

The first run was limited to 30 units, balancing high-quality materials with accessibility—no small feat when sourcing responsibly and manufacturing in-house.

Whether the moiré effect justifies itself over a standard clock face is debatable. But as proof that young designers can build vertically integrated brands straight out of school, it's compelling work. STATION plans to restock soon, and the first drop's sellout suggests there's appetite for thoughtfully made, locally sourced design objects.

A common refrain is that these days people spend money on experiences. Well, for those craving the experience of being locked up in a Meiji-era prison, Japanese hotel chain Hoshinoya has a treat for you.

"The Hoshinoya Nara Prison will be the first luxury hotel in Japan to utilize a former prison, an Important Cultural Property."

"The former Nara Prison was one of the five major prisons completed in 1908, planned by the Meiji government with the aim of internationally standardizing prisons."

"The iconic red brick building is a modern building with high historical value and excellent design. We offer a luxurious stay in this famous Meiji-era building with a world-renowned historical and cultural background."

If you're wondering what's up with the bars on the floors, this allowed guards to monitor both the level they were on and the level below.

I assume the rooms will be getting a facelift.

The joint is scheduled to open next year, and rooms will start at ¥17,820 (USD $116) per night.

"These revolutionary drill bits have changed the game forever," writes creator Nick Sharpes.

You just know that someone is going to think these are real.

The specialty "drill bits" are part of Sharpes' schtick; under the moniker The 3Dwizard, he creates "Useful and not so useful 3D prints."

He's also got a couple designs that go around corners:

If Sharpes was going for engagement, he got it. Over 15,000 people have "liked" this.

Earlier we looked at a replica McLaren F1 seat that you can buy for your gaming rig. It's sold by Logitech.

Hungarian industrial design firm Flying Objects is taking it further. They figure that for racing sims, players will want to be fully enclosed:

"The body parts are made of lightweight carbon fiber and fiberglass," the firm writes, "while the frame and rails are made of folded sheet metal for durability."

There's also a variant that isn't fully enclosed, but that just looks, you know, silly.

The firm says the design is going into production, by a Hungarian company called Kelako Engineering, for a 2026 launch.

Most tools are made out of ferrous metals. Mechanical engineer and inventor Joshua Hartung exploited this truth to design the MagMaster, a better design for a tool holder.

Tradespeople who carry a lot of tools often wear toolbelts and/or suspender rigs. These are typically kitted out with tool-specific leather holsters, hammer loops, fastener pouches, et cetera. Hartung took a different approach, drawing on his own experiences working in construction. His chief observation was that not every task requires the same set of tools—for instance, if transitioning from rough framing to finer trim work, sheetrocking or painting—and that a universal tool holder would be better than dedicated object-specific ones.

Thus the MagMaster. It's a super-strong magnet that clips to a belt, and can be used to hold virtually any tool. This makes it easy to swap tasks without having to reconfigure one's tool belt.

The MagMaster is in production by Hartung's company, Holstery. And it has stablemates. Hartung has re-thought tool belts entirely, developing a modular tool carry system based on a series of simple, clever and lightweight belt designs:

The MagMaster and Holstery's gear draws rave reviews from tradespeople.

Did you know that you could actually go skiing/snowboarding in Australia? I didn't. The country/continent actually has an established ski industry in their southeast, where the Australian Alps are located. (I also didn't know they had Alps.)

Their season is short and peaks in July and August. It relies heavily on manmade snow. But now an Australian startup called Snowtunnel is launching a plan to let Australians enjoy wintersports year-round.

What these maniacs are working on is a massive rotating cylinder that's 12m/41' in diameter (about four stories tall) and 16m/52.5' long. Manmade snow is blown into it, and they've worked out a proprietary way for the snow to stick to the cylinder, so it doesn't all just stay piled up at the bottom as the cylinder rotates.

A skier or snowboarder can then carve their way from side to side along the tunnel; it's something like a wave pool for surfers. The company reckons the 52.5' length is about the width of an alpine run. The rotation speed can be modulated, maxing out at 31 mph for seasoned skiers and snowboarders.

The company is planning to build multiple Snowtunnels around the country, and says they'll have their first opening in 2027.

China has spent decades shedding their design piracy image, and there's still work to be done. But with that much industrial might, it's just a matter of time before their original homegrown products start to outclass what the U.S. is producing. They've already stolen the march on EVs and solar panels. Now exoskeletons are next.

This elegant X Ultra leg exoskeleton was designed by Chinese ID firm Suosi Design, and it's in production by Shanghai-based Hypershell, a Shanghai-based exoskeleton company. And unlike American competitors in the outdoor exoskeleton space, like Skip and Ekso Bionics, Hypershell has had their product third-party validated by SGS, in order to prove the product lives up to its claims. (SGS is the global testing, verifying and certifying organization used by Apple, BMW, Nike, Sony, etc.)

As for what it can do: The X Ultra provides "a significant 39% reduction in physical exertion when cycling and 20% less physical exertion when walking," the company says. "Hypershell X Ultra features long-lasting batteries, providing 42,000 steps per battery. With two batteries included, the walking range extends to an impressive 60 km, a substantial leap from the previous generation's 17.5 km."

The frame is made of titanium alloy. The unit weighs 3.9 lbs and the batteries 1.6 lbs each, for a total weight of 5.5 lbs. That's light, with competing products weighing in closer to 10 lbs. And the design is both visually elegant and substantially different from competing products: Rather than distributing weight across the legs, it places the motor and drivetrain at the lower back, which reduces hip strain, improves stability and allows for natural movement, particularly when ascending and descending slopes.

The company says their single-frame design works well with a wide variety of body and clothing types, and is easy to don and doff.

Most damningly for the competitors, this thing is in production and already shipping, globally. And the company only got started four years ago!

Modern sewing machines may be portable, but they all require elecricity. Anytime you use one, you're either near a wall or you're creating a trip hazard.

British designer Dom Johnson has changed that up with this Caddy, a mobile sewing station.

"Constructed from 15mm birch ply and powered by a 1000W power station, it features 12+ hours of wireless sewing as well as a fully modular pegboard system that can be configured in hundreds of different ways."

I think the idea is neat, but I'd like to see a version where the part holding the storage boxes somehow swings out of the way, providing knee room.

Johnson designed and built the cart in collaboration with Greater Goods.

A year ago, to celebrate their 50th anniversary, Casio released this fully-functional Casio Ring Watch:

That was a feat of engineering that the company couldn't have imagined in 1974. And now they're doing another ring thing, this time with their venerated G-Shock model.

The G-Shock Nano, as it's called, is about 1/10th the size of the wristworn version. And it's shrunken down but faithful to the original design—the buttons, the LCD and even the buckle have all been "precisely reproduced using advanced molding techniques in a form so compact it comfortably fits on your finger."

"Shock resistant and water resistant up to 20 bar, this ring-sized watch performs with the toughness of a full-on G-SHOCK,while still allowing the battery to be replaced. Even at this small size, the LCD presents all the info you need — hours, minutes, and seconds, as well as dual time, stopwatch, and auto calendar. A soft, flashing light activates at your chosen time, adding a subtle and emotive glow."

The $110 watch comes in black, yellow or red and will go on sale later this month.

In the 1960s, Toyota's designers tackled a challenge that they hadn't yet: Design a vehicle with a lot of interior space, enough to carry up to eight passengers. Japanese law strictly regulated the length of vehicles, which presented the designers with a problem. They concluded that having the engine in the front, as was common at the time, ate up too much footprint to fulfill the mandate. So they opted for a cabover design, placing the engine beneath the driver.

The result was the 1967 Toyota HiAce (pronounced "high ace"):

Side note: The HiAce came standard with a heater—which was considered a luxury at the time!

Shown above is the "Wagon" model, which can carry six. A stretched Commuter version could fit eight people:

They also spun off a truck version, which was offered in a longbed format…

…a shortbed with a back seat…

…and a box truck configuration:

The HiAce sold well, and the design continued to evolve over the years.

1972 HiAce

1982 HiAce

1989 HiAce

2004 HiAce

Its passenger vehicle roots aside, the HiAce became extremely popular in Japan with tradespeople and businesses. It was reliable and offered (comparatively speaking) tons of storage space, a draw for carpenters, electricians, plumbers and contractors. What the Sprinter van is to Europe, and what the Ford Transit is to America, the HiAce is to Japan.

The 2019 update switched the design from cabover to engine-forward, due to evolving safety standards.

2021 HiAce. Image: User3204, CC BY 4.0

Now Toyota's unveiled their concept for the next generation of HiAces. As you can see by the paint job, they're leaning into the tradespeople market.

They're also teasing a taller version with more headspace.

This configuration lacks a passenger seat. Coupled with the lack of a B-pillar on the passenger side, this provides an incredible amount of access:

The HiAce concept was unveiled at the currently-running 2025 Japan Mobility Show, and at press time, Toyota had not yet issued a press release with details.