Toyota announces a gut-wrenching innovation: Crash test dummies with intestines. I remember the unappetizing times when crash tests were performed with (dead) pigs, or, even more gross, with human corpses (not for public consumption.) The crash test dummy changed all this. No species developed faster than the anthropomorphic test device, a.k.a. the crash test dummy. Now, it made a big leap forward. Read More >

If you’ve been reading TTAC regularly, you might have noticed that many of us have something of a soft spot for compact pickup trucks. And what started for me as an innate affinity for all forms of cheap, honest, rugged transportation has become full-blown affection on the strength of several months driving a ’92 Toyota with four-cylinders, four-wheel-drive and a manual transmission. Of course, all auto writers struggle with the disconnect between their personal taste and that of the buying public, and cheap full-sized trucks seem to have eliminated all chances of a re-investment in the segment. Ford, for one, has said that it plans on “replacing” its aged Ranger (which dies next year) with Ecoboost-powered F150 options and its Focus hatchback. Dodge, or Ram, or whoever builds the trucks in Auburn Hills is said to be considering an unibody Dakota replacement, but hasn’t made a peep about it in months. Meanwhile, GM is shutting down Canyon/Colorado production at its Shreveport plant by 2012, ending its half-hearted competition in the segment. But, according to Pickuptrucks.com (which is usually one of the best at breaking these kinds of stories), GM is considering a new entry into the otherwise neglected segment.

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TTAC was one of the first sources to call BS on Globe and Mail journo-hack Peter Cheney’s ridiculous justification for his son’s press-car incident, but as the week went on, more and more outlets picked up on the obvious fact that Porsches don’t jump out of garages on their own. There’s this thing called a “clutch interlock switch”. Mr. Cheney likely figured that, since he doesn’t know much about cars, that the public would know even less. Oops!

The decent thing to do in these circumstances would be to simply apologize to one’s readers and then to return to the whirlwind lifestyle of far-flung press events, free $180,000 cars, and hilariously low performance standards which is synonymous with “automotive journalism”. It would have been quickly forgotten. The man who was responsible for approving Cheney’s original Porsche loaner flat-out told me, “I’ll give him another one.” Of course he will! Porsche, and everybody else in the business, is perfectly prepared to turn a blind eye to Cheney’s misdeeds past, present, and future. I was recently contacted by an anonymous Canadian source who told me that “Cheney’s kid drives press cars all the time, and everybody knows it.” So what? We’re on the gravy train now! Let’s keep it rolling!

Mr. Cheney, of course, can’t just let that happen. He’s apparently done enough “real” journalism in his life to know that there needs to be a culprit behind this incident, and he’s self-deluded enough to somehow miss the fact that his own spoiled son is to blame. As a result, we’ve been treated to another story, in which Cheney, um, finds the real killers. “Now,” he hilariously writes, “I was searching for answers, sifting through the debris like an air crash investigator.”
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The NHTSA went through their database again and found 89 deaths possibly linked to sudden acceleration of Toyotas within the last 10 years.

From 2000 to mid-May, the NHTSA received more than 6,200 complaints about sudden acceleration in Toyota cars. The reports allege 89 deaths and 57 injuries over the same period. Previously, 52 deaths had been suspected of being connected to the problem, says Bloomberg.

With such carnage, one would assume that the NHTSA is beating down the doors of the bereaved to “get into the weeds” of the matter, as Secretary LaHood fancies to say. Read More >

Toyota definitely keeps us on our toes. Last week, the tete-a-tete between Toyota and Tesla had the world speculating about an electric push by the world’s largest auto maker. That was last week. This week, it’s hydrogen. Read More >

I don’t believe in charity. I believe in help and I believe in profit. A sick or dying child may need my help… and I’ll give them everything I can. But an able bodied human being will only get one simple thing from me. A trade. Knowledge, money, work, things, emotions. I’ve traded everything in my life as did my father and grandfather. Horses, mules, cars, houses, fancy foods of every flavor you can imagine. It gave us an education. A family. A “happily ever after”. Everything we ever desired in our lives came true from the pursuit of profit and the willingness to trade… and of course share…
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Coupe – feminine noun. Cutting; cutting out; cut. According to the Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary at least, this is the definition of a word that always held special promise for car lovers worldwide. But the evocative nature of the term, and the fact that French is no longer the world’s lingua franca, have given today’s automakers license to apply the term to almost anything. If a car’s roof line even remotely resembles a rotten piece of a banana, it’s a coupe. Marketing, after all, is a more powerful force than grammar.

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No, the UAW doesn’t want to invest into Tesla like Daimler, or, a few days ago, Toyota did. The UAW wants Tesla to go union, says Reuters. “Our union’s hope is that this venture will give first hiring preference to former NUMMI employees who are already trained and highly skilled,” UAW boss Gettelfinger said. Well, one can always hope. Read More >

The conversion of vegetables into car fuel continues. In Japan, the Agriculture Ministry teams up with Toyota, Denso, the Chuo university in Tokyo, the Kyoto university and others with the goal of producing fuel from produce. From algae, to be exact. Are algae food? In certain parts of the world, they are. As I’m in Tokyo, dried algae are in the snack tray next to the computer, and they begin to infest the keyboard. The green stuff that wraps sushi is dried and pressed algae. Read More >

A lot of people have been shaking their heads at the Toyota/Tesla deal. Was it just an elegant way to unload the NUMMI plant? As in “here are $50m, please buy my plant with it?” Or is it part of a grand strategy, the beginning of Toyota’s foray into an all-electric future? As usual, the truth is stranger than business plans. Read More >

Yesterday’s Toyota hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee was a desperate attempt to keep the Toyota issue in the headlines, and to provide flanking support for Waxman’s proposed Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The ghosts in the machine are still at large … Read More >

Akio Toyoda has often warned his company of the risks of “big company syndrome,” doubtless with the GM’s spectacular decades-long fall from dominance in mind. Today, he framed Toyota’s announcement of a partnership with EV startup Tesla as way to reconnect with a lost underdog mentality, saying

By partnering with Tesla, my hope is that all Toyota employees will recall that venture business spirit

Of course, he also said that only a recent return to profitability allowed Toyota to even consider this deal in the first place. And what of the deal? Toyota will buy $50m worth of Tesla shares “in a private placement to close immediately subsequent to the closing of Tesla’s currently planned initial public offering,” as a Tesla presser puts it. In exchange, Tesla is buying “site two” of the NUMMI plant for what Tesla CEO Elon Musk terms “a great price.” NUMMI will be the production site for Tesla’s Model S, a $30k Tesla, and a jointly-developed sub-$30k vehicle. The two firms also intend to cooperate on the development of EV components as well as production system and engineering support

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Rep Henry Waxman’s version of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act passed the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection today, and will go before the full Committee On Energy And Congress. The subcommittee markup [in PDF format here] includes a number of provisions that the industry and others had argued against, such as a $9 fee on each new vehicle sale, and mandatory event data recorders (EDRs) which would “continuously record vehicle operational data” and store all data from 60 seconds before, and 15 seconds after a crash. According to Automotive News [sub], Rep John Dingell is in negotiations with committee chairman Waxman to mitigate two key proposals: the removal of a cap on NHTSA fines, and the granting of so-called “imminent hazard” authority.

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The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that Toyota will team up with Tesla to “build electric cars in California.” The governor made this shocking revelation at Google’s I/O Conference today, and told reporters [via the Sacramento Bee]

Today is a very exciting day for me because … I am also going over to the Bay Area to talk about Tesla and Toyota forming a partnership, where they take one of the Toyota cars and make them electric. And again, they’re going to do that here in California.

The obvious scenarios involve joint manufacturing at Toyota’s former GM joint-venture plant NUMMI in Fremont, CA, although there has been no confirmation of these or any other details yet. [UPDATE: According to insidebayarea.com, a Downey, CA city councilman
confirms that Tesla will build the Model S at NUMMI. The Downey City Council had planned to approve a lease deal for a Tesla factory site, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk called to announce that his firm would be setting up shop at NUMMI]

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Colin writes:

Sajeev and Steve: I’m a Brit currently on expat in the US. For several years now I’d loved the idea of buying a cool American only car and taking it back with me, have something fun to drive for a while and then selling it in the UK (or Europe) for more than its total cost. I have 18 months left before my return, however to avoid import duties and VAT I need to own the car for a minimum 12 months in the US and 6 months in the UK.

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