Toyota's making a moon rover for Japan
It'll carry a pair of astronauts more than 6,200 miles.
Toyota's lunar rover will be about the six of two microbuses.
Toyota's next challenge is out of this world.
The carmaker is working with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency to build a pressurized rover for exploring the moon.
The six-wheeled, self-driving vehicle will be able to carry a pair of lunar explorers up to 10,000 km (more than 6,200 miles) and is about the size of two microbuses, JAXA wrote in a release Tuesday.
The passengers will be able to take off their spacesuits in the 13 square meters of living space, and take two more people on board in an emergency. It's powered by the Japanese car company's fuel-cell tech (which uses solar energy).
"Having Toyota join us in the challenge of international space exploration greatly strengthens our confidence," Hiroshi Yamakawa, JAXA's president, said in the release. "Manned rovers with pressurized cabins are an element that will play an important role in full-fledged exploration and use of the lunar surface."
2019's already seen a big push for moon exploration, with China, India, Israel, the US and other nations sending, or planing to send, robots there, but Toyota isn't planning to get its rover there until 2029.
Mass Effect fans will notice that the vehicle looks a bit like the Mako from those games -- let's hope Toyota will add rocket boosters to a later version of this rover.