The autoblogosphere is buzzing with news of an explosion in an electric vehicle battery testing facility at General Motors’ Tech Center in Warren, outside of Detroit. This isn’t the first time that the Tech Center has been the site of an explosion involving alternative energy. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the domestic automakers have invested many millions of dollars trying to develop alternatives to gasoline power over much of the second half of the 20th century. Almost 50 years before Toyota introduced the hybrid Prius and Honda started making the FCV hydrogen fuel cell powered car, General Motors was working on cars and trucks powered by fuel cells or batteries. Not all of that R&D proceeded without incident. Read More >
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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. |
I come to not to bury the W-body Impala, but to praise it.
With the NYIAS introduction of its replacement, we can now legitimately call Chevrolet’s pocket battleship of a full-sizer the “old model”, although if we are speaking truthfully, it virtually qualified as the “old Impala” when it was introduced thirteen years ago. At the time, it seemed like more woeful evidence of General Motors’ ineptitude, a quick mash-up of a Lumina with powerplants so ancient there are probably cave paintings somewhere in Altamira documenting an early TSB campaign for them, complete with pictograms of how to use a wooly mammoth to power an engine hoist.
A funny thing happened along the way, though: the Impala started to find things. First it found a place. Next, it found character. Finally, and not everyone will agree, it found redemption.
TTACers have known it for quite some while: Europeans won’t get a Prius C / Aqua compact hybrid, they will get a hybrid Yaris. Today, the first one rolled off the line at Toyota’s plant in Valenciennes, in the north of France. Read More >
Used car prices have been rising for a while to a degree that sometimes it can be cheaper to buy new than used. If you have been sitting on the fence, it could be time to hop on down. Used car prices are predicted to peak within the next two months. Read More >
According to lore, Americans dig big cars, Europeans love their hatchbacks, Australians love pick-ups. And the Indians? Indians love sedans. The sedan is a status symbol for most in India. It provides a feeling of accomplishment. It also costs more. A sedan does not cost much more to make than its hatchback platform cousin. What makes a sedan more costlier are the taxes we have to pay.
The Indian government wants to promote small cars as they are eco-friendly and consume less fuel. They are easy to park and maneuver. They take less space on the road and help in reducing traffic congestion. If you visit India, you will notice that the infrastructure growth is not keeping pace with the GDP growth. This makes small cars extremely important, and the Government of India is leaving no stone unturned to promote them. But how do they do that? Read More >
After a two-week interruption to explore the Top 100 best-selling cars in the world and the Top 318 best-selling models in Europe, I am now back to travelling where you want me to… Based on your suggestions, we have already been to Chile, Georgia (the country, not the American state), Myanmar and Bolivia.
And this week we are going to Paraguay. Why? Because lilpoindexter and lokki have asked. Yep, Paraguay seems to be a popular destination among TTAC readers… Is that because of Larissa Riquelme, the lingerie model who promised to run naked in the streets of Asuncion if the Paraguay soccer team won the 2010 World Cup? Maybe.
But wait, are you tired of South America already? Que no es un problemo, because I have sales info for 159 additional countries for you to visit in my blog, all one by one. So don’t be shy and click away!
The good thing about Paraguay is that I have official data. Yep, no need for me to spend hours watching YouTube videos to give you my best guess. Phew!
The Land Rover Defender may be in for a substantial “reboot”, from utilitarian niche vehicle into the brand’s volume seller, when an all-new version goes on sale in 2015.
A study by Polk found that the majority of hybrid car buyers don’t end up purchasing another one – when Toyota Prius buyers are excluded, the number of repeat hybrid customers is as low as 22 percent.
Did I really buy that car? Ohhh....
A base 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 160k miles was coming to the auction block. Zip ties were holding up the passenger mirror. Options were minimal, and the various dings and dents did the trade-in no favors. It’s the type of vehicle that usually does no more than $2500 during most times of the year.
But with April comes tax season, and with tax season comes prices that hold only the lightest resemblance to reality.
I understand the need for a luxury car maker to create a super car. It spilled into my drawing books at CCS. But I love Lincolns. To wit: a stand up grille (modeled after the Bugatti EB110), covered headlights (Continental Mark III) , a power dome hood and an-ever-so-slight Continental kit that blended into a spoiler (like the final RX-7). Jokes about my Panther Love on TTAC is fine, but I was far too scared to encourage the stereotypes in design school. I showed absolutely nobody my super car Lincoln, and I never will…it, among other aborted design studies, went in the trash when I left Detroit.
But Lexus? No, they actually think they can play in this space. At least long enough to make a statement: since I never did, I do applaud their effort. Even if I don’t especially like it.
Brazil provides the first letter of BRIC. Without the BRICs, we’d have tombstones for carmakers. How are we keeping the global auto business alive, down here in the Southern Cone? Follow me as I give you the highlights. Read More >
This is the third thousand-ish-mile rental review I’ve done in the past few months (I drove an Elantra to Nashville in December and a Jetta to Kalamazoo, Michigan in March) and I’m starting to have a real fondness for the format. There’s a squeaky-clean pleasure in evaluating a vehicle away from the reality-distortion field of a press event or the micro-drive format of a dealership test. The only problem is finding places to go on these trips: there are only so many guitar shops, vintage clothing dealers, or long-limbed Tennessee brunettes in this world.
Luckily for me, TTAC feels a certain responsibility to cover the New York Auto Show, so I had a 551-mile commute to make and a nonexistent expense account with which to handle it. Time to call Hertz again… but I had a Rebecca Blackian dilemma concerning which seat to take. Impala? Crown Vic? Equinox? Nope, let’s keep the compact ball rolling. I asked for it, I got it: Toyota! More specifically, I got a Corolla.
Little did I know that, fewer than twenty-four hours after arriving in the city where I was born, I would be fleeing Gotham in disarray.
Two years after the Volkswagen Golf was launched, it received a fuel sipping diesel in 1976. I presented the launch campaign in Wolfsburg, and the ground shook. It wasn’t because of my campaign. It was because of the body stamping presses. The offices of the Zentrale Absatzförderung, VW’s advertising department, were two floors above. Read More >
(We’re big fans of Timothy Cain here at TTAC, and now the independent sales analyst par excellence is on board with us. Welcome!)
It’s one thing to point out that Fiat 500 sales jumped 642% in March in an attempt to display knowledge. It’s another thing to recognize, with great wisdom and awareness, that such a year-over-year comparison is all but invalid given the fact that Fiat only began selling the 500 in March of last year.
The closest I’ve ever come to dying in a car was at the wheel of a Toyota Avalon, and I credit the nice, long wheelbase, stable handling and strong V6 engine for helping me avoid a major catastrophe. The new 2013 model, with its swoopy styling, looks like something that just might get you into trouble rather than keeping you out of it.
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