Toyota released year-end global sales numbers for 2010. Thanks to an uptick in December sales, they were slightly better than estimated in December. Toyota Motor Corporation global group sales rose 8 percent to 8.418 million units. This includes Daihatsu and Hino.

Toyota sold 7.528 million units under its own nameplate, up 8 percent. Daihatsu sold 783,000 units, up 4 percent, and truck maker Hino moved 107,000 units, up a strong 35 percent.  Japanese group sales were 2.204 million units, up 10 percent. Overseas sales rose 6 percent to 5.962 million units. But are 8.418 million units enough to keep Toyota in the top spot?

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Honda Motor Co. Ltd. has to write off 15 billion yen ($181 million) “resulting from recently discovered improper transactions at a trading business subsidiary in Tokyo,” reports The Nikkei [sub]. It was all about dead fish. (Read More…)

A factory that can make cars fast should be the goal of every automaker. The higher the throughput, the lower the cost. Japanese companies had for long been on the leading edge of efficient and flexible production. Now, Toyota has made a big step forward, reports Reuters.

Introduced in a new factory of Toyota subsidiary Central Motor Co, the production line is shaped like the letter “U”. It allows for more than one task to take place at once on a vehicle. The engine can be installed in the front while underbody parts are added in the back. In a way, Toyota introduced multithreading to car manufacturing that had been sequential since Henry Ford. (Read More…)

We sometimes forget that Russia is very close to Japan. So close that you can see Russia (or Japan) with the naked eye. For many years, Japan’s used cars were literally sent to Siberia, where they did, right hand drive be damned, hard duty in a climate they were not built for. Mazda is thinking of reviving the far eastern ties between Russia and Japan. (Read More…)

Fuji Heavy will delight its Subaru clientele with a full redesign of its Subaru Impreza. After four years, the car got a bit long in the sprockets. Launch is scheduled for this year, says The Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)

AFP [via Google] reports:

Nissan Motor had delivered only 60 units of its Leaf electric vehicle in Japan as of Friday, Kyodo News reported, despite already taking 6,000 orders due by the end of March.

Nissan denied any delay in the delivery of the pre-ordered cars and company spokesman Mitsuru Yonekawa told AFP on Tuesday that the automaker was taking a cautious approach to ensure quality control.

“We have to make sure that everything is 100 percent safe and sure,” Yonekawa said. “This is the first time we have mass-produced an electric vehicle so we need to be very careful. We are not delayed or behind schedule.”

Well don’t rush it then… but it’s got to be rough to be one of the 6,000 folks who pre-ordered by the end of last March. Nissan promises these patient souls that production of the initial 6,000 units will be complete by the end of this March.

After a less than enthusiastic welcome, Nissan is pulling its Made in Japan Cube from the European market, less than a year after its introduction. Journalists loved the car. But customers hated its shape and high price. (Read More…)

Toyota’s minicar subsidiary Daihatsu is leaving Europe. Daihatsu will end auto sales in Europe on Jan. 31, 2013, The Nikkei [sub] reports. Reason given: “The yen’s strength has made exporting vehicles from Japan next to impossible.” (Read More…)

If you like your appliance-style Toyota (there is statistical proof that you are not alone) then better run and buy it now. The Nikkei [sub] rattles its readers this morning with the news that Toyota “plans to build vehicles that are more eye-catching to counter criticism its cars are too bland,” (Read More…)

EVs are the darling of the media. In Europe, the Leaf is the COTY. In the U.S. and Canada, the range extended Volt is the COTY. Then why are most big European manufacturers (except Renault) and most Japanese manufacturers (except Nissan) dragging their heels when it comes to wholesale electrification of their fleets? Maybe because they are working on wholesale adoption of hydrogen. As previously reported, there are agreements between automakers and governments in Europe, North America, Korea and Japan to prepare for the mass introduction of fuel cell cars by 2015. Japan is ahead of the game. (Read More…)

Japan is the world’s center of gravity for plug-ins one actually can buy. News from the land of Nippon also illustrate a little detail that prevents EVs from wholesale adoption.

There is an EV conundrum that had been largely overlooked or ignored amongst the hype: So you need a charging station in your garage. What if you don’t have your own garage, because you live in an apartment complex? Range-challenged EVs are targeted at dense cities, and where do people live in dense cities? (Read More…)

Lexus entered the „premium compact“ segment today by launching their CT 200h hybrid hatchback in Japan. They could call it CT 200hhh – as in harmonious hatch hybrid. We’ll get to the harmonious in a minute. (Read More…)

“There have been companies that have gone belly-up for carrying excess capacity, but no company has gone bankrupt for not being able to produce, We now realize humbly that we shouldn’t make cars until we’re absolutely certain they will sell.”

Toyota’s Executive Vice President Atsushi Niimi to Bloomberg. (Read More…)

“Prius has become to hybrids what Kleenex is to tissues and Levis are to jeans.” So said Bob Carter, group VP and general manager of Toyota U.S.A. With so much brand power, it would be a waste to have only one Prius. From now on, Toyota has three. The Prius received a bigger and a smaller sibling, with the idea towards creating “a modern family with a Prius for everyone.” (Read More…)

Double-digit sales declines in the U.S. in the past two years notwithstanding, Toyota’s  Gen  X & Y Scion brand is in “no danger” of being put out of its misery, and new products are in the pipeline, Toyota Prez Akio Toyoda told The Nikkei [sub].

Toyoda confirmed that the subcompact iQ, recently reviewed by TTAC in Tokyo, will be coming early this year to the U.S., as a Scion.