Toyota capitalized on the pre-Tokyo Motor Show buzz and presented its plug-in hybrid Prius PHV to the press. The car is not quite ready for launch, it will be launched in Japan on January 30, 2012. However, dealers accept orders as of today. The venue of the press conference was carefully chosen: The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation.
Toyota sees this car as the “mainstay next-generation eco-vehicle following the EV.” (Read More…)
Tomorrow, the Tokyo Motor Show will open its doors at the Big Sight to the press. Pre-show madness is running in high gear. Every Japanese carmaker tries to outdo the other with pre-releases and hints. Sometimes, they go wrong. Especially, when there are gullible counterparts. On Sunday, the (FT)86 fans at the enthusiast site ft86club.com received shocking news from their special correspondent Leeky who was dispatched to the unveiling at the Fuji Speedway.
“The car will be limited to 1000 units per year only.
Each car I can confirm will be hand made.”
This tidbit created outrage amongst the Hachiroku (86) fans. (Read More…)
A while ago, we showed you a system that helps military vehicles blend into the background. Back then I thought wouldn’t that be nice to have for a car? I bet there are occasions where you would prefer that you could simply look like you weren’t there. Tonight, I saw something that looks like the civilian version. It comes from Toyota. (Read More…)
Today was the day Toyota’s FT86 was officially revealed. Actually, it will be officially revealed at the Tokyo Motor Show, which will open its doors to the public on December 3. Today, the international media had a sneak preview of the car. Us, and maybe 20,000 people who lined the galleries of the Fuji Raceway where Toyota and Gazoo Racing held its TGRF (Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival). The masses could witness from afar as Akio Toyoda climbed out of an orange sports car, removed his helmet and waved at the adoring crowds. (Read More…)
German-Nipponese alliances are not going out of style, the Volkswagen/Suzuki soap notwithstanding. Toyota and BMW cut a diesel deal – if The Nikkei [sub] is correctly informed. They ran the story very early in the Japanese Saturday morning; hence no comment from Toyota is available. We’ll ask on Sunday, when we’ll see that mysterious RWD sports car.
According to The Nikkei, BMW will supply diesel engines for Toyota’s passenger vehicles sold in Europe. When and how many is unclear. (Read More…)
The slow exodus from Japan continues. Driven out by the strong yen, which turns exports into a money loser, Toyota is building out capacities abroad. Toyota will invest €265 million ($354 million) into its existing plants in Turkey and the UK. 1,900 new jobs will be created, 400 in Turkey, 1,500 in the UK. (Read More…)
Volkswagen had painted a bulls-eye on Toyota and wanted to beat the Japanese by 2018. At least in terms of production numbers, Volkswagen will have Toyota beat this year. Instead, VW has to contend with GM.
The long-term new energy strategy of Volkswagen and Toyota on the other hand could have been devised in a joint planning session. Volkswagen believes that near-term, the plug-in-hybrid has a great future, whereas Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn won’t live long enough to witness the boom of the pure electric car.
The German newspaper Handelsblatt has an interview today with Winterkorn. It echoes in large parts the interview which I had ten days ago with Toyota’s Chief Engineer Satoshi Ogiso. The two sound amazingly similar: Bullish on plug-in hybrids. Cautious on EVs. (Read More…)
You want rare? When’s the last time you saw a Corolla All-Trac, anywhere? (Read More…)
Both Akio Toyoda and Carlos Ghosn are in the U.S. and what are they doing here? They complain loudly about the high yen. Akio Toyoda uses an interesting reasoning. It may make Americans wish for an even higher yen. Toyota may shift a “significant” amount of production to the U.S., if the yen stays high, and if demand in Japan will fail to consume Toyota’s vast capacity there. If the majority of Toyota’s output is shipped overseas, then factories will follow.
“If demand in Japan recovers, we will continue and work to maintain production of 3 million units” in Japan, Akio Toyoda said to Bloomberg. “If most of it becomes exports, shifting a significant amount of production to the U.S. may be considered.” (Read More…)
Toyota steadfastly refuses to refer to its upcoming new compact rear-wheel-drive sports car as anything else than a “new compact rear-wheel-drive sports car.” But Toyota sure knows how to whip up more excitement (if that is possible) before the pocket racer will be officially unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show. While websites around the globe publish every scrap of paper or digits they can lay their hands on, Toyota will paint you a picture. (Read More…)
According to my informants, the Tokyo Motor Show will degrade into a „regional show“ and will pale in comparison to the monster shows in Shanghai or Beijing. Toyota will ignore that, and its exhibit will be “likely one of the most closely watched ones of the show,” as Automotive News [sub] says.
The crowd magnet will be a car which Toyota steadfastly refers to as the “compact, rear-wheel-drive sports vehicle jointly developed by Fuji Heavy Industries and TMC.” Any guesses what it may be?
Autoguide already publishes under-hood pictures, but Toyota will release neither name of the FT-86 / Scion FR-S, nor will it hand out pictures, even under strict I-will-cut-your-fingers-off-if-you-break-it embargo. First in-the-flesh pictures should appear on Sunday, November 27. How do I know that? Trust me.
Did I say no pictures? You will drown in pictures after the jump … (Read More…)
Back on Friday, Toyota’s Chief Engineer Satoshi Ogiso and TTAC talked about the past of the Prius, and the future of the automobile. Back to the here and now: We also talked about a car that has been a (badly kept) secret until today: A compact hybrid that suddenly makes former miser-meisters (such as the Honda Insight or the Mazda2) look like gas guzzlers. It is the Toyota Aqua, probably called Prius C when and if it lands on other shores. (Read More…)
Remember the uproar over Unintended Acceleration in Toyotas? After more than a year of investigation, NHTSA has yet to find a definitive cause for the furor… although the experience was not an entire waste. In fact, the most interesting result of the entire situation was that it cast light on NHTSA’s inefficacy as much as it did embarrass Toyota’s quality control. And to help clarify what exactly the lessons of the Toyota flap were, the DOT’s Inspector General has released a report detailing its criticisms of the federal safety regulators. According to the report [PDF], NHTSA’s Office of Defect Investigation (ODI) has not
Since the Tokyo Auto Show and some Scion scuttlebutt have us on something of a Daihatsu theme here, I thought I’d show a bit of what the small car specialists are up to these days. The truth: despite the brand’s futuristic showcar image projections, Daihatsu mostly plays in the rough-and-tumble entry-level segments of emerging markets, where the cars are small and the margins can be even smaller.
And it’s had better luck there than in the so-called “mature markets.” Though the third generation Charade flopped on the American market amid much popular ridicule of its name (and, according to gearhead lore, oversight of other favorable qualities), the previous generation became the FAW-Tianjin “Xiali,” one of China’s most ubiquitous cars. Now Daihatsu is ditching Europe and hustling strangely cool little mini-MPVs built in Indonesia with the taglines “it’s very cheap” and “we build them compact.” Who needs developed markets?
(Read More…)
Think hybrid and electric cars are expensive? Wait until automakers start selling hydrogen fuel cell cars. Toyota tells Automotive News [sub] that it’s targeting global sales of a “few thousand” fuel cell vehicles by 2015. But because the technology will be rolled out due to emissions standards rather than widespread market demand, expect the price for the hydrogen Toyotas to be breathtakingly high. Says Toyota Europe’s Vice President for Product Planning & Marketing Alain Uyttenhoven
We could expect a fuel cell vehicle to retail at about 100,000 euros in Europe.
Phew! All of a sudden those EVs aren’t looking so overpriced, are they? Which might be why Uyttenhoven adds
We see pure battery-powered vehicles to be just a solution for small trips in the city, while a plug-in gasoline-electric hybrid is the best solution both for weekday urban commuting and weekend trips. Our research shows that more than 80 percent of urban daily trips are less than the 20km.
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