One of the biggest complaints about biofuel is that food is turned into fuel while people go hungry. Price hikes for staples have been blamed on ethanol production, especially subsidized ethanol production. Ethanol is usually made from sugarcane, corn, and beets. Grapes find their way into fuel tanks instead of wine glasses, rice is often driven instead of eaten.  Woodscraps and agricultural residue would be less of a moral and financial hazard if converted into fuel. However, it proved resistant against yeasts. Today, Toyota took reporters to a lab in Aichi and showed off a yeast that wood-scraps, dead leaves, straw etc find highly irresistible. Read More >

For the first time in 13, yes 13 months, Japanese new car sales registered a small uptick. Small (sukoshi) it is, 1.7 percent, compared to September 2010. And that only, because September 2010 was bloodbath.

When we sang our Sayonara to growth a year ago, we didn’t expect it would be THAT bad: For the 9 months of this year, Japanese car sales are down by a whopping 25.9 percent.  Following data provided by the Japan Automotive Dealer Association. The numbers do not include minivehicles. (Careful when applying the data to minivehicle-heavy makers such as Daihatsu or Suzuki…) Read More >

What looks like a Chinese-Japanese matter should cause considerable heartburn in Sweden and the Netherlands: The Chinese government has informed Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. that it will not approve the automaker’s application to set up a joint venture in China, says Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun. Let’s take a closer look. Read More >

Brazil is touted to soon eclipse Japan as the world’s third largest auto market, and there is at least one Japanese company that wants to make hay of this: Nissan. The Nikkei [sub] heard that Nissan plans a Brazilian factory which “will have an annual production capacity of roughly 200,000 units and will begin churning out strategic small cars in 2014.” Read More >

It’s strange: When you talk to the big manufacturers in Japan, then they are worried by benchmarking Volkswagen and Hyundai. GM never comes up. When you talk to Bob Lutz, who has been re-hired as a part-time consultant to GM executives, then he is worried by benchmarking Volkswagen and Hyundai. Toyota never comes up. Bob Lutz thinks the Japanese have lost it. Germany’s Manager Magazin disturbed Lutz’s Swiss vacation with an interview, and Lutz, always good for explosive quotes, did not disappoint: Read More >

The Japanese car industry is slowly but surely producing and exporting itself out of the huge hole caused by the March 11 tsunami. The Japanese domestic market remains where it was before the catastrophe: In the dumps. This is the bottom line of August production, export and domestic sales data released today by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association. Read More >

Last year, tensions ran high – about dirt. Emotions were whipped up about a Chinese embargo on stuff most people never had heard of: Rare earth.The stuff is used to make magnets that go into anything from hard drives to generators and electric motors. Cooler heads tried to point out that rare earth is not rare at all, and that China has as much a monopoly on rare earth as it has on sand. Nobody listened to the cooler heads, and rare earth prices went stratospheric. Step aside, those rare earth prices are crashing down.

Says Bloomberg: Read More >

 Toyota has a new global styling chief that makes heads turn in Aichi and Bunkyo, even before he has shown a rough design: “Eeeh? Look at that shirt! And did you see the gold chain???” Or as Frau Schmitto-san, TTAC’s advisor in multicultural matters exclaimed: “Global styling? He needs to style his hair!” It takes a lot to shake up Toyota’s culture, and Akihiro “Dezi” Nagaya has what it takes.

Charged with putting an end to the long tradition of conservative design, Dezi Nagaya definitely looks the part. According to Automotive News [sub], he “dresses like he’s on his way to a trendy Shibuya nightclub rather than off to work at Toyota.”

Cornered at the Frankfurt Auto Show (even there he stood out), Toyota’s new head of styling promised: Read More >

In case you are at the Texas State Fair in Dallas at this moment, stop staring at million dollar steers and heifers and go over to Toyota. They will show you a truck with the longest name in recorded Texas history. It’s the “pre-production Tacoma Toyota Racing Development (TRD) T|X (Tacoma Extreme) limited edition pickup truck.”

We did not make that up, it says so right here in the press release. If “pre-production Tacoma Toyota Racing Development (TRD) T|X (Tacoma Extreme) limited edition pickup truck”  is too long, you can call it “Baja Series.” Read More >

Toyota will allegedly launch a new compact hybrid in January that will deliver a record low gasoline consumption of 40 km per liter.  On a straight (non EPA) conversion, that would be a jaw-dropping 94 miles per gallon.

What’s less, the car “will not only beat the Prius’ 32km fuel economy, but also likely sell for around 1.7 million yen, around 300,000 yen cheaper than the Prius,” says The Nikkei [sub]. Read More >

If anyone again mentions that the Japanese manipulate their currency to get an unfair advantage in international markets, then I will strangle him.  Or make him pay my Tokyo restaurant, taxi, and even subway bills in converted dollars. Strangling would be the more humane punishment.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has an even more painful option in store: He’ll leave the island. “If the Japanese government wants to really safeguard and develop employment, then something has to be done,” Ghosn told Reuters editors Paul Ingrassia and Kevin Krolicki in an interview in New York. Read More >

The Japanese car market is in the midst of the worst crisis since 1978. The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association expects auto sales in Japan to fall to a 34-year low in the current fiscal year that ends in March 2012. This as a result of the severe production drop, triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Read More >

Japanese customers can now buy the facelifted Mazda3 with its fuel-efficient SkyActiv technology. Except that it’s called Axela in Japan and has the steering wheel on the wrong side. Pretty much everything that needs to be said about the car already has been. If you missed it, here is the English version of the Japanese press kit. (Now how is that for service?) Mother of all Mazda3 picture collections follows.

It used to be that Toyota left the kei car minivehicle market to its Daihatsu division, but no more: Today saw the Japanese launch of the first passenger minivehicle to be sold under the Toyota brand. It’s called the “Pixis Space” and putters along on a 40 cubic inch engine. Read More >

This must be the oddest story of the day: According to conventional wisdom, the South Korean market is pretty much closed to American cars. “Not so,” says a company that makes a lot of cars in the U.S. The odd part: The company is Japanese. It’s Toyota. If The Nikkei [sub] has its facts and sources together, then Toyota will export Kentucky-made Camrys to South Korea. Read More >