Toyota News

The picture you're looking at with the Audi was taken on flat land. The Aud R8 LMS above was riding a track with an incredible 60-degree banked corner. Now that we have your attention with that tidbit, here's your unusually present update of race cars simply too awesome to ignore. We're ...    Read more

The Oregon Department of Transportation is looking into a system that would track the amount of miles you log as an alternate way to pay road taxes and user fees. An original proposal was shot down in 2006, as users didn't want GPS devices that could potentially track where they ...    Read more

Apologies for the hackneyed headline, but it's true—the American economy is being buoyed by the auto industry, from the ground up. From manufacturing to sales to rising employment, cars are what's fueling economic growth. The US economy's 2.2 percent growth in the first quarter of this year was due in no ...    Read more

The nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently announced three vehicles -- the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu ECO, the 2012 Hyundai Azera, and the 2012 Toyota Prius c -- as the latest recipients for its Top Safety Pick award. The IIHS tests vehicles for safety in frontal and side crashes, rollovers, and ...    Read more

Numbers matter to automakers, for they not only represent how their business is—or is not—doing, but can be used as a psychological weapon that'll either help or, more often, hinder the competition. Along both lines, Toyota recently re-passed U.S. rival General Motors as numero uno in sales worldwide. Toyota sold nearly ...    Read more

Watch out, citizens of Nevada. Just as it had threatened, Google has finally obtained a license for its driverless car. The Nevada DMV approved the nation's first autonomous license, after its officials rode along with the self-driving Toyota Prius and discovered that it drove better on the Las Vegas Strip ...    Read more

When Toyota had that niggling little kerfuffle a few years ago, what with its cars accelerating its occupants without their knowledge, analysts and pundits wondered out loud when, or if, Toyota would gain its mojo back. Turns out, the answer is now. Toyota sales were up 13.8 percent in April, ...    Read more

The Toyota RAV4 EV broke cover at this year's Electric Vehicle Symposium (EVS26), ushering in the first all-electric production crossover in the U.S.  since the automaker's last RAV4 EV packed up shop in 2003. Partnering with Tesla for design consultation and battery supply, ...    Read more

Abraham Lincoln (you know, that guy on the five-dollar bill) once said "whatever you are, be a good one." While Lincoln was gone long before Chrysler became an official corporation in 1925, the Auburn Hills-based automaker appears to have taken that bit of advice to heart when it comes to ...    Read more

The Toyota Supra was a car enthusiast's dream, an inexpensive sports car for the masses. Toyota discontinued the Supra in 1998, which resulted in fanboys hounding the automaker ever since to build the next generation model. Instead, the automaker focused on its family friendly Camry sedan, RAV4 crossovers, and the ...    Read more

OnStar, the subscription-based communications branch of General Motors, is now available to over 100,000 vehicles on the road today. The FMV is an aftermarket mirror that can be added to any car, not just a GM model. According to statistics collected by OnStar, the biggest chunk of profit comes from ...    Read more

It was a great month for Honda, Subaru, Toyota and Mazda, which all posted either double-digit growth or the best month ever in the company’s history. Which is kind of like the difference between finding a quarter in your pants pocket on laundry day and winning the Stanley Cup. The ...    Read more

The Toyota RAV4 EV was electric before electric was cool. Although never built in great numbers, the first generation was leased in California from 1997 to 2003 and eventually sold to some private owners after Toyota's grand experiment ended with it. Now, Toyota's finally coming out with an encore, based on ...    Read more

Hearing New Yorkers, you get a sense that there's an arbitrary pride in keeping things the way they always were. If you need an example, just look at the Yankees, who still don't carry player names on their jerseys after more than 100 years. When it comes to transportation, New Yorkers ...    Read more

Last year might have been the toughest on record for Japan's three major automakers, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda. A strong yen partnered with the horrific natural disaster that struck Japan in March of 2011 crippled the three aforementioned automakers and all have only recently recovered. Honda was the last of ...    Read more

You ever have that moment where you buy too many boxes of Cheez-Its, and then you eat a box of Cheez-Its and leave the other box of Cheez-Its in your garage or shed or nuclear containment facility, and then you completely forget about the Cheez-Its until 5 years later when ...    Read more

Yesterday, we wrote about the great Hybrid and EV comeback, not that it ever really went anywhere, buoyed by strong March sales and increased consumer demand. But that was sooooooo yesterday, because today, someone else on the internet wrote something different, claiming recession-weary car buyers find hybrids and EV's ...    Read more

Just three months ago, hybrids and electric vehicles were on the way out, everybody said. As recently as January came a wave of stories—like this one from the Boston Globe—on why hybrid cars aren't selling, and how manufacturers aren't playing with battery packs anymore. There were way more ...    Read more

Coda Automotive, which is currently in its infant stages as an automaker, told the Detroit News yesterday that it's working on an "entry-level" electric vehicle for the United States. It will build this EV in partnership with Chinese automaker Great Wall Motors. Coda boss Phil Murtaugh said the California-based start-up ...    Read more

Once upon a time, horsepower drove the development of most cars. A couple of fuel crises (OK, more than a few) and car crashes (and their lawsuits) changed the focus to higher fuel economy and safety features like airbags and even the humble seatbelt. Car safety, like entertainment systems and road ...    Read more

China's annual international auto show, which rotates each year between Beijing and Shanghai, is a mixed bag of promise and a facade of decades-old technology hiding under fresh sheetmetal. China's auto market is still emerging, and the country doesn't always have the same sets of quality and crash standards of ...    Read more

Toyota's trick Tacoma TRD truck gets a price for its trappings: Start with the Tacoma's $25,055 base price (Access Cab, 6-speed manual), and the TRD T|X Baja Series Package will be $5,015 on top of that. What do you get for that chunk of change? Well, Toyota claims that the Baja Series package was ...    Read more

It appears one temporary solution to the auto resin shortage may have been found, allowing major automakers such as GM, Ford, Toyota, and others to continue production. Last week, an explosion occurred at a plant in Germany that ...    Read more

In what may be a small boost to automakers, car battery prices fell 14 percent in the first quarter of this year from just a year ago. In electric, plug-in and hybrid vehicles the battery can often account for up to 25 percent of the overall cost of the vehicle. ...    Read more

In the 1960s film The Graduate, the concerned Mr. McGuire gives Ben some advice: "I have just one word to say to you Ben: Plastics." If the film were to be made this week, the iconic catchphrase might be "resin." An explosion at a plant in Germany that makes a ...    Read more