A floating car is born from the carnage of Japan's tsunami

TOKYO -- Hideo Tsurumaki watched the giant tsunami waves crash onto Japan’s northeast coast on March 11, 2011, sweeping away cars filled with people trying to escape.As the vehicles sank slowly into the sea, Tsurumaki thought about his mother, who lives by the ocean in another earthquake-prone part of the country. She has difficulty walking, like many of those who tried to flee by car that day. And he thought that if the cars had been able to float, fewer people would have perished.Two years later, the former employee of a unit of Toyota Motor Corp. started to build a small, watertight electric vehicle that can float in floods, or even cruise at low speeds. His startup has some notable backers, a functioning prototype, and plans to produce 10,000 cars a year from late this year at a factory that it’s renting near Bangkok in Thailand. By 2020, Tsurumaki hopes to take the company public.“I intend to put one outside our house,” Tsurumaki, 55, said of the cars. “Many others will probably think the same.”Vehicles that can travel on land or water have been around since at least the early 19th century, used by everyone from tour operators to armies. More recently, from 1961-68, German manufacturer Amphicar Corp. produced 3,878 amphibian cars that remain popular with collectors, according to enthusiast Web site amphicar.com. And Gibbs Technologies of the U.K. developed prototypes called the Aquada about a decade ago. Emergency use?

A floating car is born from the carnage of Japan's tsunami

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