Toyota
Report: Toyota Corolla Tops Cash-for-Clunkers Purchase List
With the Cash-for-Clunkers program officially ending last night, the U.S. Department of Transportation has now released its top 10 list of the most purchased vehicles under the program, with the most popular car purchased being the Toyota Corolla. Toyotas actually took three of the top 10 spots, with the Camry placing third and the new…
Report: Toyota Prius Coupe To Be Designed in Italy
The upcoming Toyota Prius Coupe will add plenty of eye-catching passion to its environmentally-sound drivetrain thanks to a body that will be designed in Italy. Japan’s BestCar magazine has reported that an Italian coachbuilder will be outsourced to provide the design for the two-door Prius, with the possibilities being Pininfarina or Italdesign Giugiaro. The choice…
Report: Demand for Lexus HS250h Outpaces Supply
Demand for the new 2010 Lexus HS250h hybrid sedan is so high in Japan that the automaker fears it might not be able to keep up with expected sales volumes in the U.S. The world’s first stand-alone luxury hybrid has just gone on sale in Japan and its popularity has far exceeded expectations. Toyota initially…
Official: Toyota CEO Confirms Toyobaru Sports car
Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda has, for the first time, officially made clear that the automaker is in fact working on a joint project with Subaru to build an affordable sports car. Toyoda made the statements at the Center for Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, Michigan The new car will be stylish, yet…
Report: Toyota Forced to Slow Prius Production as Battery Supplier Can’t Keep Up With Demand
The 2010 Prius has been a popular car for Toyota since it first went on sale several months ago, but the pace of sales will slow considerably over the next few months. The reason for the lull is that the Prius’s battery supplier, Panasonic EV, can’t keep up with the demand. The third-generation of Toyota’s…
Report: Toyota Not Planning Hybrid Yaris After All
In a strange turn of events, a source inside Toyota has told the U.K.’s AutoCar that the Japanese automaker isn’t looking to build a hybrid version of the Yaris. The source says the car won’t be built in France, Japan or anywhere; not yet anyway. Toyota does plan to build hybrid versions of every car…
Toyota Planning Yaris-Based Hybrid for Sale in Japan, Europe
Just a few weeks after Toyota officially announced that it would build a hybrid version of the Corolla-based Auris in the U.K., new reports suggest a similar (but smaller) model is being prepared for Japan and Europe. The car would be built in Japan for the Japanese market and Toyota has plans to build a…
Report: Honda Fast-Tracking List of Updates to Improve Insight
According to the U.K.’s Autocar, Honda is fast-tracking a list of updates for the Insight originally scheduled for a mid-cycle makeover that’s still several years off. The focus of the changes will be to further improve fuel-economy, which while impressive at 40/43 mpg (city/highway), lags significantly behind the 2010 Prius and its 51/48 mpg rating….
Report: Acura NSX to Return as All-Wheel Drive Hybrid
The latest bit of Acura NSX gossip points to a return of the luxury Japanese automaker’s flagship sports car, but as an all-wheel drive hybrid. 7Tune is reporting from their sources that when the next generation NSX (known as the Advanced Sports Car Concept) was canned, it was actually more of a temporary matter as…
Report: Mazda to License Hybrid Technology From Toyota
Mazda is reportedly in talks with Toyota over the prospect of licensing hybrid technology from Japan’s largest automaker for use in future green cars. Currently Nissan has a similar arrangement with Toyota for the Altima Hybrid. Mazda currently has one hybrid model, the Tribute HEV (pictured above), which is based on the Escape Hybrid and…
Report: Lexus to Expand Product Line Down-Market With More Entry-Level, Performance Vehicles
With the ongoing recession every automaker has suffered a slide in sales, but the decline for Lexus has been more significant than at its German rivals with sales down 34.1 percent for the year so far. Lexus believes part of the reason is due to a reliance on up-market SUVs and the fact that the…
Toyota’s Cost-Cutting May Claim 2010 Japanese Grand Prix
Yesterday Toyota announced that due to financial reasons it will not be able to host the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix, a move which could jeopardize a visit by Formula 1 to Japan next year. The race was scheduled to be run at Fuji Speedway, which is owned by Toyota but given the current economic climate…
Plug-in Prius Due Out in 2012; Two Years After Chevy Volt
According to a report in Japan’s Nikkei business paper, Toyota expects to sell as many as 30,000 plug-in Prius models annually once production begins in 2012. This would put the PHEV Prius on the market almost two years after General Motors has said its plug-in hybrid, the Volt, will be launched. The paper is also…
Toyota to Launch iQ Mini Car in U.S. as Scion Model
Toyota will bring its iQ city car to North America by 2012, badged as a Scion model. Scion debuted a concept of the iQ (shown above) at the New York Auto Show this year. When it does launch, however, expect it to look significantly more tame. Currently the mini car (about the size of a…
General Motors May Sell Rebadged Prius
Toyota may share a version of its Prius hybrid with General Motors according to a recent report by Bloomberg. Sources say Toyota President Akio Toyoda and GM CEO Fritz Henderson will meet in August in Michigan to discuss the possibility of selling a version GM-badged Prius – or possibly using Toyota hybrid technology to build…
Aston Martin Introduces ‘Cygnet’ Commuter Car Concept Based on Toyota iQ Mini-Car
Aston Martin has just released details of an upcoming concept car the luxury British automaker is working on… and it’s not at all what you might expect. Rather than a high-powered exotic, this new machine, called the Cygnet, is a tiny commuter car. The Cygnet is based on the Toyota iQ and while it sounds…
Japanese Company Considers Building Toyota Prius Hearse
Thanks to Lequios, you can do more for the environment once you’re dead than just become fertilizer for pushing up daisies. The Japanese hearse manufacturer is designing a hearse based on the 2010 Toyota Prius, meaning your last trip in a car can be an environmentally-responsible one. And you thought saving the planet for future…
Shoichiro Toyoda Lashes Out at Toyota Execs
One of the last things Shoichiro Toyoda did as honorary chairman at Toyota Motor Corp., was to assemble all of the company’s executives and give them a tongue lashing. Toyoda even called out president Katsuaki Watanabe and blamed him, as well as those other executives in charge of the Japanese automaker, for leaving behind the…
Toyobaru Rumors Resurface As Insider Gushes About Small Sports Car’s Design
The Toyobaru, in case you haven’t heard, is a secret car that, as the name would suggest, is being built as a joint project by Toyota and Subaru. Code named the 086A, the possibility that the two Japanese automakers might actually build the thing sounds like a dream – and yet the rumors about it…
Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger Headed to NASCAR in 2010
Forget the Fusion and Avenger, the 2010 Ford and Dodge NASCAR racers will be mean street machines and real pony cars. That’s right, the Mustang and Challenger. Both cars are expected to be closer to stock than any car in recent history, but that’ s not saying much. The move was made by the NASCAR…
Toyota Struggles to Keep up With Demand for 2010 Prius
While Toyota’s sales may be suffering as a whole, sales of the all-new 2010 Prius are well above expectations. In fact, the Japanese automaker is having trouble keeping up with demand – something which may result in lengthy waiting lists for the third-generation of Toyota’s successful hybrid. At the two facilities where the Prius is…
Toyota Finally Axes Solara Convertible
Toyota has finally made the decision to stop producing the Solara Convertible. It’s not likely to be missed. The Coupe model was discontinued last summer (in case you hadn’t noticed), but Toyota decided to keep up convertible production as there were no other drop-top models in the entire company’s vehicle lineup. A few months later…
Pontiac To Offer the Vibe (and Nothing Else) in 2010
The 2010 model lineup for the soon-to-be-terminated Pontiac brand will consist of just one model – the Vibe. Recently GM interim CEO Fritz Henderson reiterated the company’s position that the G8 would not carry on as either a Buick, Chevy or Cadillac. The G3 and G5 will also cease production this year, while the G6…
 in 2010. For more, click https://autoguide.dev.vscopedev.cloud/auto-news/2009/06/pontiac-to-offer-the-vibe-and-nothing-else-in-2010.html "Pin It")
Toyota Planning iQ Cabriolet
Toyota appears to be readying a convertible version of the iQ minicar that is currently on sale in Japan and Europe. The report comes from Japan’s Best Car magazine, which suggests much of the basics will be kept including a 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine that makes 99hp and 92 ft-lbs of torque. Fuel-economy for this engine…
