The President Speaks: Our Corporate Vision
Connecting our hearts to the Journey
Heartmotive is Panasonic’s original slogan that combines Heart and Automotive. President Nagayasu talks about the sentiment of this slogan, and how it came about.
What is “Connecting our hearts to the Journey”?
We created this catchword with the sentiment of wanting to operate a uniquely Panasonic automotive business that leverages our proprietary know-how. Panasonic has been there for people, enriching and assisting in their daily life with our home appliances and other products. Our corporate mission is to use the lifestyle-related know-how and technologies we have acquired in our home appliances, housing and other businesses to “create a sustainable mobility-society to promote a better life for everyone.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has restricted people’s lives and movements; however, it hasn’t changed the need to care and be there for people, even in these drastically transformative times. Mobility connects more than just people - it also connects objects and places, and leads to the touching experience of new encounters. We are committed to “connect our hearts to the Journey.” This means creating a sustainable mobility society where people can move around stress free, and finding solutions to social issues while enhancing the value of mobility itself. With this sentiment, we have set our slogan of Heartmotive - a combination of Heart (human emotion) and Automotive (automobiles) - as the action guidelines of our employees.
We have also received a lot of positive feedback from our car manufacturer customers about how the sentiment of Heartmotive resonates with them. We hope to collaborate with car manufacturers on ways to improve the quality and happiness of users’ lives.
Origin of Heartmotive
There is a personal experience I remember intensely. It was at the Osaka World Expo in 1970. As a young boy, I made the long journey from Ehime to Osaka, and through the large crowds of people at the American pavilion, I saw a piece of rock from the moon. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who had this experience and developed a sense of awe toward the inconceivably faraway cosmos. Even now, I can recall the sense of excitement I felt wondering what kind of new world awaits us in the future.
Since becoming an adult and being in a position to lead the automotive business of Panasonic, I’m constantly asking myself how we can give the children of the future things that can excite them too.
The sole answer to this is a sustainable mobility society. The society we want to create is one where every person can keep experiencing touching moments and stories in their lives, and in which we can find solutions to all kinds of social issues associated with mobility, from environmental issues and traffic jams to car accident-related deaths and transport for the elderly and other vulnerable people in society. To enhance the essence of people’s mobility experience, we need to anticipate the changes in people’s lifestyles, values, and mobility styles in 2030 and beyond, and then backcast these changes to envision and create our businesses.
The future and outlook we are aiming for
The motive in Heartmotive means “to move”; it comes from the French word “motif”, which also means design. So Heartmotive is a word Panasonic employees came up with to express the sentiment of their commitment to designing moving world and cabin interior innovation solutions.
Cabin interior innovation solutions to enhance the value of mobility We are working on bringing into form the many ideas we came up with during the COVID-19 pandemic, including creating clean and comfortable interior spaces and making passengers feel relaxed and refreshed in body and mind. The basis for this will be applying and verifying the vast amounts of data the Panasonic Group has accumulated on people’s lifestyles and daily living activities. We are collaborating with car manufacturers and other relevant manufacturers within and outside Panasonic, and creating value with new cabin interior concepts.
Panasonic is striving to provide solutions worldwide that will address the issues of elderly people having to surrender their driver’s license and the younger generation moving away from cars. These include enabling the elderly to keep moving around safely, and also reminding the younger generation of the appeal of being mobile. We will keep challenging ourselves not only in the sale of tangible items, but also in the sale of intangible ideas and concepts, and in the service business and other areas.
We hope you are excited about the great things to come from the Panasonic Automotive Systems Corporation. We will continue to care and be there for people, and keep creating new value that excites everyone.
Click here for information on our corporate vision.