How many cars are needed to move all the Olympic teams?

10,500 athletes and tens of thousands of staff, including delegation personnel, journalists, security personnel, etc. The organisational machinery of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games is immense, practically a city within a city. With all the difficulties that this entails, there is one in particular, which is moving a very large number of people around on a daily basis in extremely congested areas.

It is precisely this complexity that makes the Olympic Games a perfect laboratory for experimenting with new vehicles, which can be developed specifically for the occasion. And once again, Toyota is doing just that, as the "global mobility partner" of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, it is providing a fleet of - brace yourselves - more than three thousand vehicles.

Beyond the numbers, it's interesting to know what these vehicles are, some of which look like something out of a science fiction film.

For every need

Even if you've never had the chance to walk around an Olympic village or visit a city in the middle of the Games, the various competitions seen from the sofa give you an idea of the chaotic situation that can prevail given the number of people coming from all over the world. And while it's common for the public to travel by public transport (in Paris, the metro works very well indeed), the athletes and their staff have to find alternative means of transport that are just as efficient.

Read also:

Cars at the Olympic Games: An overview

To move people around pedestrian areas, Toyota has chosen some very curious vehicles that look like electric scooters, but... are not. They are called C+walk S and C+walk T, with and without seats respectively - and are designed to travel at speeds of up to 4 mph with obstacle detection systems.

Toyota C walkS

Toyota C walkT

For the personal mobility of disabled athletes, 200 wheelchair or monowheel systems with handlebars are designed to move around electrically, even during the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games.

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If groups of several people need to move around the Olympic areas, some 250 Accessible People Movers (APM), electric micro-scooters that are also wheelchair accessible and used as shuttles inside the Olympic and Paralympic Villages, will come into play.

Finally, 150 traditional vans derived from the Toyota Proace Verso - in an electric version, needless to say - are being used for urban transfers on roads open to traffic.

Toyota Accessible People Mover

Toyota

Long distances

The Paris Olympic Games are obviously not being held in just one place, but throughout the city and its surrounding areas. For long distances, a fleet of Toyota bZ4X, Proace, Proace Verso, Mirai and the new Lexus RX is being used.

At this stage, we can answer the question posed by the title. The final count of the Olympic fleet, all vehicles combined - cars, vans, minibuses and personal vehicles - is 3,374, including 500 hydrogen-powered, 845 full hybrids, 176 plug-ins and 1,003 electric vehicles. All the powertrains available in the Toyota range are represented, but above all the philosophy of 'technological neutrality' that the Japanese giant has been pursuing with conviction for years.

Toyota Olympic Games Paris 2024

Toyota Olympic Games Paris 2024

And if you're wondering what will happen to all these 'Toyotas' when the Olympic Games are over, the answer is that they will stay in Paris. The personal mobility vehicles will be made available to disabled people, while the others will join the municipality's low-emission fleets.

This includes the 500 Toyota Mirais that will join Paris' fleet of hydrogen-powered taxis, which currently numbers no fewer than 1,000 cars.

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