This car is enough to make any surfer say “whoa, dude”. Actually, it probably wouldn’t, because I know that most surfers don’t talk like we want them to.

This is a Toyota Venza designed for Billabong for the SEMA show. It has wet suit material on the seats themselves, and even a shower in the back for rinsing. It also has built-in WiFi and cool images topside on the inside.

Source

No tags for this post.

And the answer to the big question above?  Chrysler.

Ouch.

See, this is doubly unnerving after discovering that, yesterday, they were still trying to get a cohesive corporate strategy together and won’t actually have one until sometime later today.  Or at least not one they want to tell their franchisees about, who are probably all looking at this news with a kind of confused rage and just longing to scream various epithets at anyone who’s in charge over there.

Chrysler needs a comeback, plain and simple.  So what they’ve got to do is offer stuff you can’t get anywhere else.  Frankly, I have a hard time imagining just what it is they CAN do.  I drive a Chevy, myself, a wonderful if aging Monte Carlo, and my folks drive Ford Explorers.  There’s not a whole lot of taste issues as I’m considering switching to a pickup fairly soon anyway, and chances are I will go either Ford or Chevy.

Chrysler needs to get some new and interesting product, or it doesn’t matter how many bailouts it gets–it’s still done for.

Tags: Business, Chrysler, Ford, GM, improvement, lagging, Toyota

Here’s a little SEMA surprise: the Toyota Tundra Midnight Rider Tailgater. Inspired by Brooks and Dunn, it is the ultimate tailgate party vehicle.

It includes an infrared barbecue, Grill N Chill cooking space, slide-out cargo box, and a 42-inch flat-panel TV with complete sound system. It also has something that no pickup truck has: Belt Buckle door handles.

Source

No tags for this post.

We’ll be covering the SEMA car show in Las Vegas a lot this week, and here is one of the craziest. This is the Toyota Tacoma All-Terrain Gamer, aka the Taco ATG (as printed on the license plate).

The Taco ATG has huge gull-wing doors that are essentially the front and back doors welded together. It also has a six-foot bed, along with four X-box 360 elites hooked up to four foldable 24-inch Samsung LCDs.
Did I mention an energy drink dispenser? It has it.

Just riding this is enough to make the geekiest gamer cool.

Source

No tags for this post.

Toyota has finally decided that the Scion is worthy of the land of Canada. By September 2010, the Scion will be available in 45 dealerships in the country including Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.

Oh, that’s pretty good, eh? We finally got the Scion up here, eh? All right, enough with the Canadian jokes and let us hope the great lands up north will enjoy the Scion.

Source

No tags for this post.

In what has been tagged as the most expensive car ever to come out of, the Lexus LFA Supercar took the Tokyo Motor Show by storm and dwarfing other car manufacturers on hand. The Lexus LFA is a limited edition supercar that will retail for a whopping $375,000. It features a lightweight carbon-fiber reinforced polymer body as well as suspensions made of lightweight-aluminum alloy. It also has carbon-ceramic breaks which all comprise its even allocated weight distribution of 48:52.

Other highlights of the Lexus LFA include a 4.8 liter V-10 engine paired with a 6-speed transmission which be sufficient for its boasted top speed of 202 MPH. Production for the limited edition Lexus LFA supercar will start December 10, 2010. Orders are now being taken at the Lexus LFA website.

(Source) New York Times

Tags: aluminum alloy, car manufacturers, expensive car, fiber reinforced polymer, Lexus, lexus lfa, lightweight aluminum, lightweight carbon fiber, limited edition, liter, new york times, polymer body, speed transmission, Supercar, suspensions, tokyo motor show, top speed, website source, weight distribution

I don’t know if this comes as any surprise, but the Toyota Prius has won the car of the year at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show. Considering that this is the 30th anniversary of the show, the Prius was lined up with the winners from all previous years including last year’s winner, the Toyota IQ.

Source

No tags for this post.

The other day we reported on how Steering Wheels are a Dying Breed, and this particular FT-EV II concept car is proving that theory correct. As you can see, the wheel and pedal controls have been replaced by some sort of steampunk looking, gilded joystick doohickey.

Is this the look of steering wheels for the future? More like the ghost of steering wheels past.

Source

No tags for this post.

Toyota is planning on unveiling a new hybrid in Japan with the 2010 Toyota Sai Hybrid. It will have a DOHC 2.4 liter Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder engine with variable valve timing. Its engine can put out 147 horsepower, and 187 hp with the electric boost from the 245-volt battery pack. It is also good at going for 0-60 in 8.4 seconds, and at 54 miles per gallon. Too bad it will stay in Japan.

Source

No tags for this post.

What you see above is the Toyota FT-68 Concept, a concept vehicle expect to make its debut at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show next week. For those who don’t know, this is the concept that is the work of a collaboration between Toyota and Subaru.

Details are slim but we do know that it will be a rear wheel drive vehicle with a 2.0 liter Toyota-Subaru “D-4S” Boxer engine. As for a release date, well, it’s expected to hit dealerships by 2011 wearing a Toyota badge but that could change with further announcements.

Check back next week as we cover the Tokyo Motor Show.

via ft-86 club

Tags: collaboration, ft-86 concept, tokyo motor show

Yesterday we told you that Ford’s hybrid sales were up 73% over last year but we had no idea the Detroit automaker was going to see this kind of success. Recent reports have surfaced that suggest Ford is dangerously close to surpassing Honda as the second best hybrid seller in the United States.

Let’s take a look at some numbers: Honda has sold 29,958 hybrid vehicles so far this year which is a 8% increase over last year while Ford sold 26,016 vehicles, a 73% increase over last year like we already told you.

If these trends continue, by this time next year we may very well be seeing the U.S. hybrid seller top 3 looking like Toyota, Ford, Honda. But don’t pop the champagne yet, Ford, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

via autobloggreen

Tags: auto sales, Ford, Honda, hybrid, Toyota

No matter who you were, 2008 was a horrible year economically and if you were in the auto industry you felt it more than anyone else. Further proving this fact, Ford has today announced that their hybrid sales are up 73% over last year.

Below David Finnegan, marketing manger for Ford’s hybrid division, comments below:

Hybrid customers increasingly are considering Ford. More than 60 percent of Fusion Hybrid sales have been from non-Ford owners, and more than half of those are customers coming from import brands, mostly from Toyota and Honda.

Of course, Toyota is still the leading hybrid car seller with 144,351 units sold for the first 9 months of 2009, as compared to Ford’s 26,016. However, this is certainly a good thing for the American auto industry and they are going to need all the good things they can get.

via greencarcongress

No tags for this post.

For all the owners of Toyota Tundra trucks, it would be advisable to make a periodic check of your chassis. Reports have it that some owners have been complaining about severe frame rust which may eventually lead to broken brake lines and loosening spare tires. The year models affected are 2000 and 2001 and covers about 218,000 vehicles. There have already been reports of underbody-mounted spare tire separations from the rear crossmember and broken brake lines. Fortunately, no accidents have been reported yet so take the initiative and check or observe these parts from time to time.

If investigations reveal that these are indeed Toyota’s fault once again, it may become the second recall after the celebrated floormat design unintended acceleration defect. Worse, it can really dampen the brand image of Toyota, something it doesn’t need right now with their floundering sales due to the recession.

(Source) Press

Tags: acceleration, Accidents, brand image, chassis, floormat, initiative, investigations, models, rear crossmember, recession, rust proofing, separations, spare tire, spare tires, Toyota, toyota tundra, trucks

It looks like a copyrighting infringement issue regarding the way to apply force to a car’s wheel from an electric motor or internal combustion engine may stall, if not threaten, the release of Toyota’s hybrid cars. Such is the claim of a small company in Florida, Paice. According to reports, Paice thinks that Toyota is making use of their technology which became more serious when the U.S. International Trade Commission came into the picture.

If Toyota is found to have violated copyrights, Toyota could face a ban on the release of its hybrid cars that include the hybrid Camry, Prius, LexusHS250H and Lexus RX450H SUV. And considering that Toyota is already in a heap of trouble, this is not going to help their cause one bit!

(Source) Secuobs

Tags: Camry, copyrights, heap, hybrid camry, infringement issue, internal combustion engine, international trade commission, Lexus, paice, peril, Prius, Toyota, toyota hybrid cars, wheel

The first thing you’ll notice when looking at the Toyota FT-EV II is that, indeed, this tiny, sprightly little electric buggy does not in fact have a steering wheel.

In fact, such twentieth century concepts such as a steering wheel and pedals have been replaced in favor of instruments and controls designed to take advantage of wireless information, allowing the car to, on a limited level, DRIVE ITSELF.  And check this out:

The car might, for example, recommend music, movies, and other content based on what it knows about the preferences of the driver and passengers. It remains connected to the Internet whenever it is switched on, and connects to its users’ home networks to download data on its operations.

All this is awesome, of course, but how does it DRIVE?  Well, pretty well, actually–turns out the car gets fifty miles on a battery charge with a top speed of sixty miles per hour.  This means, of course, the car is going to be best suited for urbanites, as opposed to people who actually have to drive any distance to get where they need to.

Being a concept, no one’s got any firm release date yet, but if they do go into production, we’ll be sure to tell you.

Tags: battery, Concept, concept car, Electric, electric car, Toyota, Toyota FT-EV II