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Looking south of the A4 in Audi’s current range of motors, the hottest vehicle in its North American lineup is the current S3. Those of us west of the Atlantic don’t get to enjoy the turbocharged five-pot RS3 Sportback. Thankfully, Theophilus Chin is on the scene to digitally imagine our Ingolstadt desires with this compromise – the RS3 sedan.
- Audi RS3 Sedan (Theophilus Chin)
Our favorite automotive manipulator attaches the fore and aft bumpers of the RS3 to the A3 Clubsport Quattro concept. - Range Rover Evoque SVR coming (Motoring.com.au)
Land Rover is looking to SVR all the things and the Range Rover Evoque is likely the next target. - Toyota, Mazda in talks on expanding partnership, report says (Automotive News)
Since Toyota and Mazda are already working on one ugly car together – the Scion iA/Toyota Yaris Sedan – they may as well work together on another as well. Mazda gets hydrogen and hybrid tech from Toyota. Toyota gets SkyActiv tech from Mazda. - The first solar bike path is producing more energy than expected (Engadget)
230-foot stretch of solar bike path produces 3000 kWh of electricity in six months. Good: more energy than expected, enough to power a single-family home for a year. Bad: expensive, problematic (they’re still working out technical issues with the protective glass), dependent on weather. - 2016 Toyota HiLux international reveal set for May 21 in Thailand (CarAdvice)
Looks like we will officially see the new HiLux at the end of next week. - Most midsize SUVs fail tough U.S. crash test (Reuters)
Midsize SUVs, old and new, are having issues with IIHS small overlap test. - Illinois State Police gets FAA approval to use drones (Chicago Tribune)
Next time you see a drone overhead while driving down an Illinois freeway, there might be an accident ahead. Also: the police don’t want to call them “drones” because that sounds Big Brother-y. - Hidden Cact-Eye: Paradise Valley installs cameras in cactus (FOX10)
But this is definitely Big Brother-y. “The City of Paradise Valley has added cactus with cameras in them over the past few days, but residents have no idea why, and the city doesn’t want to talk about them.”
14 Comments on “While You Were Sleeping: Audi RS3 Sedan, Toyota HiLux Reveal and Cameras Are Everywhere...”
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OK, so I have an inquiring mind and I need to know:
From what I’ve gathered the Hilux is primarily sold in areas around the globe where the primary mode of rural transportation is the ox or the camel; i.e., not a lot of 80+ mph highways and certainly nothing like our CAFE or pedestrian safety mandates to influence design.
So why is its roof just as smashed-down and its front end just as tall and bulbous as our pickups and SUVs? And given its conformance to our own sad new norms, why isn’t it sold here? Redundant to the Tacoma?
Those places all have a big city in them anyway, and too many countries follow the lead of the more advanced countries on their regulations.
The Hilux is Toyota’s small pickup for most of the world. Toyota probably developed the core vehicle first to meet the countries with the hardest regulations. Whatever resulted was what other countries with fewer regulations got. Bumpers and other small stuff may change to meet local laws and regulations (or lack thereof), but it’s much cheaper to keep the core design the same around the world than develop custom body shells for a larger number of markets.
Yes, it would cannibalize Tacoma sales, as small as they may be.
LeMansteve,
Got it in one. They will probably sell 700,000 with new Model. Pickups are pretty rare in Europe/Russia/ North Asia, so those are markets that could have really boosted the numbers
Sensible answers, thanks.
And I guess in the less developed markets my personal bugaboos of declining visibility and punishing ergonomics wouldn’t matter nearly as much because of less traffic (outside city cores) and tinier people.
@Rideheight,
Because it is used like a U.S. Pickup,in many parts of the World as well as an extreme Off Road vehicle Not necessarily less traffic,a lot of congestion in some 4th World places
The HiLux is sold outside of North America. Plenty of 80+ mph roads and fuel economy restrictions in Europe.
Toyota has been producing US-oriented models for some time. The Tacoma, Camry, Lexus ES and Tundra are examples of vehicles that target Americans. The US is the largest car market in the developed world, and Americans buy enough Toyotas to justify a US-specific lineup.
The Hilux had Australia’s third-highest sales in 2014: http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/the-10-most-popular-cars-of-2014-20150106-12ihkp.html
They’re all through the cities and the countryside too.
@Lithe,
Which is amazing considering how old the current model is, about 9 yrs old, with refreshes keeping it up to date.
Hilux has a lot of competition this year with new models from Nissan, Mitsubishi, and refreshed Ford and Mazda models
If the Toyota-mazda deal goes through, Toyota is getting the best of the deal by far. Let mazda in on the science project to get access to the skyactiv engine line? Yes, every time. Economies of scale will help mazda a lot though, which is probably the biggest reason they’re in on it.
They strike me as a fairly natural fit, especially if the plug-in hybrid part goes through—both have a preference for larger-displacement NA engines over smaller turbos, and Mazda’s expressed an interest in going forward with greater electrification (some of their literature a while back suggested a Skyactiv to hybrid Skyactiv to electric generational sequence).
I wonder what this might mean in terms of ownership—if Toyota does end up with a small chunk of Mazda stock it would give them a stake in both of Japan’s niche, export-oriented mainline automakers (Mazda and Subaru).
In any event I have greater confidence in Mazda-Toyota partnerships turning out well than I do in, say, Mazda-FCA ones.
“The City of Paradise Valley has added cactus with cameras in them over the past few days, but residents have no idea why, and the city doesn’t want to talk about them.”
No wonder, a cactus is easier to chop down than the usual steel structure.
Saguaro Cactus are not easy to chop down. The state of Arizona frowns on that. You can get a permit to move them though.
While Paradise Valley is adding cactus cameras, red light cameras were voted down in Arlington, TX last weekend and the mayor got kicked to the curb too. Tea Party leader Kelley Cannon got a right turn on red ticket in January 2014 and made her angry enough for her to lead an effort collect 11,000 signatures to put red light cameras for a vote.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/06/texas-tea-party-leader-fights-for-amendment-that-would-ban-red-light-traffic/
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/05/09/arlington-voters-rejecting-red-lights-mayor-cluck/27070405/