U.S. criticizes Toyota for 'misleading' public in recall | detnews.com | The Detroit News
-- The government sharply criticized Toyota Motor Corp. Wednesday for its "inaccurate and misleading" suggestion that sudden acceleration in some vehicles bound for recall may be due only to improperly fitting floor mats. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's criticism of Toyota's statement is the latest hit to the automaker's reputation from what will be the largest safety recall in its history: 3.8 million vehicles. NHTSA said Toyota inaccurately suggested in a press release this...

Toyota's nickel bet | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Toyota Motor Corp., the biggest seller of hybrid autos, is sticking with nickel as the preferred battery material for most of the vehicles after three years of secretly testing Prius hatchbacks with lithium-ion packs. Toyota last month ended road tests of 126 Priuses in the U.S., Japan and Europe that began in 2006, Jana Hartline, a company spokeswoman said. Details of the program, in which the cars' nickel metal hydride batteries were replaced with more expensive lithium models, weren't released...

California plant closure will be first for Toyota | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Toyota Motor Corp., a once-unstoppable but now money-losing automaker with idle production capacity, will stop making vehicles next year at the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif. The decision, first announced by Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is momentous for Toyota, a Japanese automaker proud of never having closed an auto plant since its founding in 1937. But Toyota signaled it might quit the venture after its partner at NUMMI for 25 years, General Motors Co., said in...

Toyota Recalls Cars in China
Sometimes having great sales and producing autos too quickly might turn against the car manufacturer. This is what happened to Toyota which has to recall nearly 700,000 cars in China because of such minor problem as a faulty window switch. It was simpler when the passengers of cars rolled down their windows by hand, but in order to make things easier the automotive industry has connected the window switches to electricity and now the windows go down by a push of a button. The Chinese officials say the...

Toyota Has Good Sales, but Still Loses Money
The major world auto manufacturer Toyota has reported a huge loss in profit for the third straight quarter. The company expects the rise of the profit in the end of fiscal year when ends on March 31 next year, but the experts do not expects a catch-up with the financial situation. So far they are talking about the $7.9 billion operating loss and $4.8 billion net loss by the end of the year.The biggest hope for a little profit is in the main two markets: there has been 32% increase in June and 11% in...

Toyota Wants to Build Auris in England
Toyota expands its work and especially the assembly of hybrids. The Japanese manufacturer already builds Prius in Japan and China, Camry in the U.S. and now they want to start the production of new plug-in Auris hatchback in Burnaston, England by the middle of 2010. Toyota Auris comes from Corolla family. It appeared in Europe as a gasoline car in spring 2007. This year models are powered by 1.3-liter four-cylinder gas engines with Toyota’s stop/start technology. After the customers get used to seeing...

Toyota confident sales will pick up in the future | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Toyota Motor Corp.'s highest-ranking executive in the United States said Thursday that he hoped the automaker would start earning money here again next year after its unexpectedly deep slide into the red. Yoshimi Inaba, a former U.S. sales chief recently rehired by Toyota, said he was seeing signs that demand in the U.S. auto market was picking up and was confident about its long-term prospects. "I'm a very firm believer that this market will bounce back sooner or later," said Inaba, the New York-based...

2010 Toyota Prius
 Toyota has announced official pricing for the five ! trim levels for the 2010 Prius, due to hit dealers in the States sometime in late May. The bare-bones version which must be pretty bare, since Toyota hasn't divulged what's included will be just $21,000. On the other end of the spectrum, the top trim level starts at $27,270 add $750 to both prices for delivery, and the most you can pay for the new Prius this spring will be $32,520 for the V trim equipped with the Advanced Technology Package ATP...

Toyota Sequoia gains
 From supersize fries to jumbo jets, lots of folks in the United States like things "big." For hundreds of thousands of new vehicle buyers, small or midsize simply doesn't cut it. They need maximum everything--from space to haul up to eight people and all their gear to towing a party boat--the only choice is a large SUV.Around the turn of the century, large SUVs enjoyed large amounts of success in the marketplace, selling more than 1 million units annually. With $4.00/gallon gasoline not...

2009 Toyota iQ
 The Toyota iQ has won Car of the Year Japan. It beat out the Nissan GT-R, which we just crowned the 2009 Motor Trend Car of the Year. We'd better take it seriously then.Actually, we already did. In our recent preview of the vehicle, we explained how the iQ is one of a whole new generation of Toyota compacts that utilize six major packaging advantages. It will enable the company to build a seven-seater in the footprint of a Yaris.But to demonstrate just how remarkable these innovations are, they're...