Power has come to the people. A year ago I filled a four-cylinder Toyota Tarago people mover with six people and their luggage for an interstate family holiday. This year I had a chance to take the same people to the same place in the new six-cylinder Tarago to provide a rare back-to-back comparison. Continue reading Toyota Tarago GLX V6: voyages in space and time
Automotive News has a quick blurb about a new model set to debut from the folks at Toyota during this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show. According to AN, Toyota’s 3000mm-long microcar will be known as the Endo and will slot in below the Aygo, the smallest vehicle in the automaker’s European lineup. Continue reading Toyota set to unveil microcar in Frankfurt
Toyota just announced that Kenji Fukuta will be replacing Hidehiko “TJ” Tajima as president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas, Inc. (TMMTX) come May 1, 2007. Despite the misleading headline, Toyota does not have the authorization to name a new Texas president. In fact, we’re not sure who does. Continue reading Toyota Names New Texas President
Toyota’s success over the past decade has come at the cost of quality at times, and now, it’s affecting employees and their families. In a document obtained by Automotive News, ToMoCo engineers and managers are getting worn out, whether it’s from cross-country trips in close succession or the daily rigors of constant expansion. The result is five-percent of employees leaving the automaker in 2006, and 10-percent leaving in 2005. Continue reading Toyota’s expansion taking its toll on employees
Toyota’s foray into the world of full-sized pickups has taught the company several lessons –- the hard way. According to Automotive News, the automaker is trying to adjust the production of certain trim levels to meet market demand; increasing output on some, while reducing others. Continue reading Toyota getting educated, changing Tundra’s model mix
This is what we’re truly all waiting for – someone to get their hands on the best-of-the-best pickups for 2007 and stage a knock down, drag out comparison test with the new 2007 Toyota Tundra. Well, Edmunds has come closest by being the first to compare the new Tundra with a 2007 Chevy Silverado and an ’07 Nissan Titan. While we really want to see a Tundra vs. Silverado vs. F-150 vs. Ram match, we’ll take what we can get.
Much to our surprise after seeing the Tundra in person at the Detroit Auto Show, Edmunds chose it as the winner of its half-ton comparison test by a slim margin over the Silverado. Continue reading Toyota Tundra beats Chevy Silverado in Edmunds comparo
The Asahi Shimbun is reporting that Toyota just got hit with a 2 billion yen bill for failure to report about 6 billion yen in taxable income from as far back as March 2004. Although the Nagoya Regional Taxation Bureau discovered Toyota’s omissions, they didn’t make an official announcement. But Asahi’s sources reported that the back taxes were levied because Toyota sold parts below their market value to two overseas subsidiaries. It was mainly Camry parts going to Australia that allowed indirect payments to Middle Eastern sales agents. Continue reading Toyota nailed with 2 billion yen in back taxes
Toyota Motor Corp. is developing a fail-safe system for cars that detects drunken drivers and automatically shuts the vehicle down if sensors pick up signs of excessive alcohol consumption, a news report said Wednesday.
Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver’s bloodstream, according to a report carried by the mass-circulation daily, Asahi Shimbun. Continue reading Toyota creating alcohol detection system
About a year ago, Toyota asked its designers and engineers a simple question: “What would be a suitable and appropriate Toyota sports car for the 21st century?†The result is the car you see on these pages, the FT-HS concept. FT-HS is a hybrid sports car designed at Toyota’s Calty design center in Newport Beach. The idea was to find out if it is feasible to combine ecology and emotion in a sports car; to make an eco-friendly car that is fun to drive. Why bother? Because Toyota thinks drivers of the future will be eco-conscious but won’t want to give up performance cars. Continue reading Toyota conceives a 21st-century Supra
Toyota has announced that the 2007 Tundra CrewMax (read: four-door model) will be unveiled at the 2007 North American International Auto Show in early January. But why wait until Autoblog arrives in Detroit next month to see the big behemoth, we have a blurry cameraphone pic of the CrewMax for you now. The photo was found by Autoblog reader Terry D. on SnoWest.com, a snow mobile forum of all places. Continue reading SCOOP: Pic of Toyota Tundra Crew Max ahead of Detroit debut
Last Friday the first two Tundra pickups rolled off the line at Toyota’s new production facility in San Antonio, Texas. The facility, called Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas, took three years to build and cost $1.28 billion. At full capacity it can pump out 200,000 Tundras a year, a rate at which Toyota hopes the plant will be operating sometime next year. The facility also houses 21 suppliers who produce components for the Tundra on-site. Toyota’s president Katsuaki Watanabe and Texas Governor Rick Perry were on hand to witness the ceremony that marks Toyota’s entry into the North American auto industry’s biggest market. Continue reading Toyota Tundra production begins
The Toyota Camry, despite being knocked by many enthusiasts as soulless and bland, has still managed to outsell every other car on the market. Second on the list is its own sibling, the Corolla. And sales keep going up, so it obviously has a lot going for it. First it wins “Most Popular” award for its sales record and now it has won Motor Trend’s Car of the Year for 2007. We’d say it’s a shoe-in for Miss Congeniality, too. Motor Trend Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Angus MacKenzie issued a statement that said the award goes to the whole Camry range for its innovation and wide appeal. This is, amazingly enough, the first win for the Camry. It beat 26 other nominees for the title. Continue reading Toyota Camry crowned Motor Trend Car of the Year