Toyota
Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrids Will Hit the Streets This Year
Toyota has announced that it will lease 500 plug-in hybrid-electric Prius models starting this year. These will be the first plug-in version of the Prius on the road and will feature new lithium-ion battery packs, which hold more energy than the conventional nickel-metal hydride batteries used in other hybrid systems. Of the 500 vehicles, 200…
Toyota Prius Is The Top Selling Car in Japan in May
The all-new Toyota Prius was the most popular selling car in Japan for the month of May, according to numbers just released by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association. In total, Toyota sold 10,915 Prius models to take the top sales spot, which was held last month by rival Honda Motor Co. and its new Insight…
May Car Sales Show Ford and GM Recovering While Honda and Toyota Slump
Car sales for the month of May appear to show a certain level of recovery – at least for U.S. automakers Ford and General Motors. Ford posted a loss of 28.5 percent, its best result since July of 2008. As for GM, it declined “just” 29 percent marking its best monthly performance since September. In…
Subaru May Bring Hybrid to Market by 2012
Just days after President Obama proposed new legislation that would see fleet fuel-economy standards rise considerably in the U.S., Subaru has said it will explore the possibility of bringing a hybrid to market in order to reduce its fleet average. Ikuo Mori, the CEO of Subaru’s parent company Fuji Heavy Industries told a group of…
Toyota Already has 75,000 Orders For Third-Gen Prius
The new 2010 Toyota Prius isn’t about to let the Honda Insight take over in the hybrid segment and strong initial sales show the Toyota model will be another big success for Japan’s largest automaker. Japanese business magazine Nikkei is reporting that Toyota has already accepted 75,000 orders for the new Prius. This news comes…
Toyota Forecasts $8.6 Billion Annual Loss
A day after GM posted yet another staggering quarterly loss, Toyota has released that it expects to lose $8.6 billion during this fiscal year. The loss was mostly driven by Toyota’s Q4 results, which just came in at negative $6.9 billion. This is the first annual operating loss Toyota has ever posted and even more…
General Motors Planning To Leave NUMMI
With the Pontiac brand gone, GM is looking to get out of its arrangement with Toyota that spawned the Vibe/Matrix models In stark contrast to official statements by General Motors reps (and to a story we ran yesterday) the struggling U.S. automaker does indeed want out of the joint project with Toyota that saw the…
General Motors Looking To Toyota For A Shared Platform To Replace Vibe
With news today that the Pontiac brand will in fact be eliminated, General Motors is eager to get working with Toyota to build a new shared platform to replace the Vibe. The Vibe is to GM what the Matrix is to Toyota, and both models come from an evenly shared joint venture known as New United…
Volkswagen Poised to Overtake Toyota In Sales
If Q1 results are any indication, VW may overtake Toyota as the number one car manufacturer by sales in 2009, and this comes before the German automaker starts selling its new sixth-generation Golf. Just a few weeks ago we reported that industry research firm R.L. Polk predicted Volkswagen would overtake General Motors as the world’s…
Scion iQ Concept Goes Radioactive In New York
Scion wowed the audience at the New York Auto Show with its radioactive iQ Concept. The micro-car, which is based on the Toyota iQ currently on sale in Japan and Europe, got some SEMA-style with 18-inch wheels and a widebody designed by Five Axis. We’d like to say this vehicle will make it to market…
Volkswagen to Overtake General Motors as World’s Second-Largest Automaker
Due to a predicted decrease in output at General Motors for 2009, it is expected that the U.S. automaker will be surpassed by German rival Volkswagen AG by the end of this year. The news comes from industry market research firm R.L. Polk Germany and is based on overall production numbers. Polk envisions an annual…
New Prius Takes On Insight With $20,000 Starting Price
Toyota is taking Honda’s Insight threat seriously… very seriously. In fact, the world’s largest automaker will price the new (third-generation) Prius directly in competition with the Honda’s Insight in the Japanese market. Set to go on sale on May 18th, the new Prius will cost just $20,750 (2.05 million yen). The number isn’t official from…
Auto Sales Slump Continues With 36.5 Percent Drop for March
Hyundai performed well above the industry average for March, which may be one of the main reasons by both Ford and GM have copied the Korean automaker’s job-loss protection incentive. (Photo Credit: Liberty Cars] Well, it ain’t getting any better. The recession continues to bully automakers as creditors continue to bang on their front doors…
Toyota Readies Yaris Hybrid With Honda’s Insight In Its Sights
Toyota has just announced that it is currently developing a hybrid version of the sub-compact Yaris (known at the Vitz in Japan) to take on Honda in the increasingly diminutive hybrid war. Honda’s launch of the Insight Hybrid was the catalyst in this hybrid war, undercutting the Prius in both size and cost. Honda recently…
Toyota Officially World’s Largest Automaker
Yesterday General Motors announced its worldwide sales figures for 2008, and in doing so made it official that the U.S. automaker is no longer the highest volume seller in the world. That title now belongs to Toyota. The two companies have traded places several times over the past two years on who has sold more…
World Premiere: 2010 Toyota Prius
With 700,000 Toyota Prius models currently on the road in the United States, Toyota today launched the third generation of the car that started it all. The 2010 Prius will get better fuel economy and more power. Incredibly, Toyota has raised the mpg rating from 46 mpg in the current model to 50 mpg in…
Toyota predicts loss, Lamborghini slows production
Toyota Motor Corp stock decline over the past 12 months. Source www.BigCharts.com According to Bloomberg news, Toyota will soon announce a possible dividend cut or profit loss. Following the announcement by Toyota Motor Corp. President Katsuaki Watanabe, stocks dropped (just 0.2 percent) but still remained strong. Bloomberg sources the Nikkei English News, which doesn’t give…
2009 Lotus Exige 260
For 2009 Lotus will once again improve the already perfect Exige by adding more power and by further reducing the sportscar’s already anemic curb weight. Lotus has managed to squeeze an additional 17hp out of the supercharged 1.8-liter Toyota powerplant for a total of 257 ponies at 8000 rpm. Torque is rated at 174 ft-lbs…
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