Toyota is only planning to sell 2,300 RAV4 EVs over the next three years! Can anyone say “compliance car”?
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Category: Toyota
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Toyota ReviewsToyota Motor Co., the world’s largest automaker, has been producing cars for more than 70 years. It wasn’t until after World War II, however, that production started to pick up. Toyota went from making 8,500 cars a year in 1955 to 600,000 in 1965. Models like the Toyopet and Land Cruiser hit the United States in 1957. Today Toyota is among the leaders when it comes to hybrid technology. |
300,000 miles. Precious few vehicles get up to this point of longevity without some serious issues. This afternoon over 90 vehicles were auctioned off in front of over 90 dealers. Only 1 car hit that miestone. A plain-jane 1997 Toyota Camry with substandard paint and a broken front bumper on the driver’s side. Check engine light on. Prior Rental. Title Branded. Scratches galore.
It went for over $2300. That was one of many “Holy!” moments.
Here’s the thing about design school, and designers in general: you are taught to fully express your creativity…which sounds like a great idea in theory. In reality, there’s very little “reality” in the situation. This is a creative art for profit, by a multinational, publicly traded corporation. Design school students frequently have to un-learn their training if they want to make the nut.
When my freshman year Transportation Design class at CCS was tasked for a third world mode for transport, the teacher chose one country in particular: India. Luckily, since I’ve regularly visited that nation and know a tad bit more about it than most car designers…well, I thought I’d nail this one. Because who in India (circa 1998, and still to this day) can afford a car? Rich people, not the masses with no hope of education and/or career advancement…they stick with their feet or perhaps a motorcycle. Sad, but true. Read More >
News of strong April results of key players in the world’s largest auto market China may indicate than China’s rest and recuperation period is over. SAIC’s auto sales are up 12.6 percent, says Reuters. GM reports record sales from China, up 11.7 percent for the month. Toyota told Reuters that its April sales in China were up a whopping 68 percent. Is the Middle Kingdom turning the corner to another episode of hyper growth? Let’s take a look. Read More >
With each revision since 1990, BMWs have become more like Lexus. Meanwhile, Lexus (some of them, anyway) have become more like BMWs. With the latest iterations, have the 5-Series and GS met somewhere in a muddled middle, or does each retain a distinct identity?
BMW turns more and more into the world’s purveyor of engines. If recent talks are successful, BMW motors could power Hyundai cars. This according to a report in Germany’s industry publication Automobil Produktion.
The magazine reports that Chung Eui-Sun, Vice-Chairman of Hyundai Motor Company and only son of und Hyundai CEO Chung Mong-Koo, has been in Munich to start the talks. Read More >
As sales of EVs are tallied-up, keep one thing in mind: Many are not meant to be sold in earnest. “They’re only built to meet California regulations for zero-emission vehicles–which is why they’re called “compliance cars,” says Green Car Reports. The green blog separated the “real” EVs from the compliance chariots. Read More >
When April sales data came out, a lot of noise was made of the shift towards gasoline-sipping small cars. Shrill voices feted sales of electric cars, which look like a rounding error, as a win in the war on terror. As so often, the truth is different. The new cars that hit the road in April get, on average, slightly less mileage (23.3 mpg) than those sold in March (23.4 mpg). If the war on terror would honestly be waged on dealer lots, then the true heroes would be foreign mercenaries, with Americans occupying rear echelon slots. Read More >
A few years ago I offered a strong thumbs up to the outgoing Nissan Versa. Plenty of room. A small touch of sportiness when it came with a hatchback. Good feature content. I even gave it kudos for offering a slightly frumpish French design that went far beyond the flying wedges and amorphous blobs of the time.
Times have changed. Small cars are starting to look good again. Thank God!
The 2012 Versa has been reviewed here, there and pretty much everywhere. A lot of auto journalists hate it with a passion that was once reserved for no hit wonders like the Saturn Ion and Suzuki Forenza.
Is it really that bad? American consumers are saying, “Hell no!” with sales up a stunning 30% from April 2011. At least from the sales numbers (8,300+ units last month and climbing) it looks like a car loaded with penurious plentitude is just what Dr. Recession ordered. To help us out I have asked two completely fictional car experts, Jacque Hedonist & Stefan Frugalist, to help us figure this out.
It was a good month for the Toyota Prius Plug-In, with the newest plug-in car outselling the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf in April.
What do Buick, Volvo, Infiniti, Mini, Cadillac, Lincoln, Suzuki and Scion have in common? All were outsold by Fiat in Canada last month.
When Chrysler took over the tattered remnants of AMC in 1987, they created the “Jeep-Eagle” division in order to sell Kenosha-ized Renaults such as the Medallion and the Premier. Chrysler back then wasn’t content unless Mitsubishi got involved, and so they slapped Eagle badges on a Mitsubishi Mirage built by DSM in Illinois. This was very similar to the Geo-ization GM applied to Toyota, Isuzu, Suzuki, and Daewoo products sold in North America. You don’t see many Summits these days (you also didn’t see many of them 20 years ago) so this find in a Denver junkyard was a rare event. Read More >
Sales of cars in Japan nearly doubled in April. Sales of registered vehicles rose 92 percent to 208,977 units from 108,824 a year earlier, the Japan Automobile Dealer Association reports. Sales of separately tallied mini vehicles rose 96 percent, according to data provided by the Japan Mini Vehicles Association. Consolidated, the market rose 93.7 percent. This does not include imports, which will be reported at a later date. Read More >
All results of April are in, and large parts of Detroit are unhappy. Sales of GM and Ford declined, the formerly torrid gains of Chrysler slowed down a bit. Reborn Toyota posted another double-digit gain and came within touching distance of outselling Ford, while Volkswagen continues its winning streak.
After last week’s Time Machine Dilemma (in which you emerged from your time machine in 1973, on Auto Row and with enough cash to buy a new Ford LTD), I thought of doing a 1974 Oil Crisis Diminished Expectations Economy Car Time Machine Dilemma. However, the really challenging econobox-shopping decisions came a bit more than a decade later, when the Hyundai Excel and Yugo GV arrived in a marketplace full of Japanese subcompacts duking it out for supremacy and Detroit trying to stay relevant. Yes, 1986! So, you exit your time machine in front of the Chevrolet dealership with $5,645 in your pocket. That’s enough to buy a new Chevette at full list price (the out-the-door-price would almost certainly be lower, but we’ll go with MSRP for this exercise). Do you get the antiquated-but-simple rear-drive Chevy for your penny-pinching commuter… or something else? Let’s look at your choices. Read More >
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