Toyota News
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Toyota announced on Thursday that it will begin testing in two California ports a hydrogen fuel-cell heavy-duty truck adapted from the Toyota Mirai's powertrain for drayage use. Initially, Toyota is looking at how it can use hydrogen fuel-cell-powered vehicles to significantly reduce vehicle emissions in short-haul situations, such as at distribution centers. Drayage is a logistics industry term for transporting goods between long-haul transportation modes like trains and ships. MORE: Toyota announces Project Portal The Japanese automaker will conduct its testing—which it has branded...
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2017 Toyota Prius Prime real-world gas mileage, electric range review
The 2017 Toyota Prius Prime is an automotive enigma. It proudly flaunts its eco-friendly credentials, yet its factory-rated 25 miles of electric range simply pales in comparison to the 53 miles advertised by the Chevrolet Volt. I hopped into a Titanium Glow (think beige) 2017 Prius Prime for a...
Andrew Ganz -
Toyota electric-car tech to come from venture with Mazda, Denso
Very little is known for sure about the long-range electric car Toyota will launch around 2020. Over the last two years, the company—by far the industry's strongest proponent of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles—has concluded it must field a battery-electric vehicle to stay competitive...
John Voelcker -
Which company's electric-car success will surprise us? Poll results
Predicting the future is always hazardous, but for the auto industry, this is a particularly uncertain time. Four trends—electrification, connectivity, autonomy, and sharing—are coming together in a whirlwind that could rearrange the industry and its businesses within a decade or two...
John Voelcker -
Which company's electric-car success will surprise us? Take our Twitter poll
Sometimes the competition among global automakers can seem like watching a professional sports league. Powerhouse teams—GM, Renault Nissan, Toyota, VW Group, the four largest global makers—compete against each other as well as against smaller, scrappier upstarts with devoted and loyal...
John Voelcker -
Toyota, Mazda plan joint plant in U.S., electric-car cooperation: updated
Toyota is one of the largest global automakers, while Mazda is one of the smallest. This morning, the two Japanese makers announced a capital-investment deal under which Toyota would take a small shareholding in Mazda, the smaller maker would invest in Toyota as well, and the two would set up a...
John Voelcker -
Toyota has long claimed battery-electric cars are suitable only for limited uses, and promoted hydrogen fuel cells as the best zero-emission vehicle technology. Pushed by China's increasingly tough emission rules, the company recently—and reluctantly—committed to building all-electric cars by 2020. Now a report suggests the company's electric-car plans may be more ambitious. DON'T MISS: Shift to electric cars will cost money, may lack excitement: Toyota CEO The Japanese newspaper Chunichi Shimbun reports (via Reuters) Toyota is developing solid-state batteries for its future...
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1946 Chevy pickup truck is world's oldest Prius hybrid. Really.
There are countless tales of classic cars and trucks receiving new life via parts from a completely different automobile. Whether it's an engine swap, a new platform, or a mix of a few different vehicles, project cars make for some of the greatest stories. This 1946 Chevrolet pickup truck is...
Sean Szymkowski -
2018 Toyota Camry Hybrid first drive
The 2018 Toyota Camry Hybrid is the most fuel-efficient version of all-new range of Toyota's popular mid-size sedan, its best-selling vehicle in the U.S. until very recently. The new Camry Hybrid is based on some of the same underpinnings as the 2016 Prius, and uses that car's updated hybrid system...
John Voelcker -
Toyota sold all its Tesla shares by the end of 2016
Toyota quietly unloaded the rest of its Tesla shares near the end of last year. In the process, the Japanese automaker confirmed its partnership to develop electric vehicles and related technologies had been canceled. Toyota has by far shown the most restraint in developing battery electric...
Sean Szymkowski -
Toyota, Honda, Nissan, other Japan firms to fund hydrogen fueling
Earlier this year in Europe, 13 companies joined forces to create the Hydrogen Council, a global initiative to discuss and promote the use of hydrogen as a renewable source of energy. In the United States, GM and Honda have partnered up to build a production plant in Michigan that will roll out...
John Voelcker -
How does the heat pump work in a Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid?
The challenge of reducing the energy used by traditional heating systems in battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars is one automakers still grapple with today. Reduced battery range in cold temperatures, combined with batteries working overtime to heat the cabin, can produce drastic declines in...
Sean Szymkowski -
Every automaker is now working on one or many electric cars, but some are at the head of the pack and others lag behind. General Motors already sells the 238-mile Chevrolet Bolt EV, and Volkswagen has firm plans for multiple electric cars by 2020 and as many as 30 by 2025. That leaves Toyota, the third of the world's three largest carmakers and by far the most profitable, lagging behind. DON'T MISS: Why Toyota's 'agonizing' U-turn toward electric cars? Because China says so While CEO and namesake Akio Toyoda is now heading a special project team to build an all-electric car by 2020, he still...
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Is Toyota's hydrogen fuel-cell fervor foolish, or foresighted? (with charts)
Toyota's staunch, unswerving support for hydrogen fuel cells has astonished and aggravated many in the electric vehicle community. For some of them, the technology is at best an inferior solution—and at worst is fossil fuel-friendly vaporware, a Judas in Jesus's clothing, if you will. With...
Matthew Klippenstein -
Why Toyota's 'agonizing' U-turn toward electric cars? Because China says so
Large auto companies are likely aircraft carriers: it takes a long time for them to change direction, and far longer yet to get them aligned on a new course. To various degrees, the world's carmakers have started to produce and sell vehicles that plug-in, whether for some or all of their travels...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Prius One: stripped-down hybrid added at lower price
It hasn't been the greatest of years for the Toyota Prius hybrid, the Japanese carmaker's flagship product. The fourth generation hybrid hatchback debuted as a 2016 model into the teeth of continued low gasoline prices, and its radical design language apparently turned off at least some potential...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Mirai billboards scrub nitrogen oxides while touting hydrogen fuel-cell sedan
If green cars can reduce emissions, why shouldn't their advertising do the same? That's the theory behind a series of billboards in relevant California markets that advertise the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell sedan. But these billboards will do more than try to attract the eyes of potential...
Stephen Edelstein -
2018 Toyota C-HR first drive
Sport-utility vehicles started out as truck offshoots, essentially tall wagon bodies on truck underpinnings. Think of the first Chevy Suburban in 1935, which remained a specialty vehicle (mostly for Texans) for its first 40 years. Fast-forward another 40 years, and my, how things have changed...
John Voelcker -
For better or worse, many Toyota models ultimately donate their underpinnings to the Japanese automaker's Lexus luxury brand. That may not give certain Lexus models the pedigree some purists desire, but it's a fact of life in the modern auto industry—and an effective way for Toyota to amortize development costs into higher-profit luxury cars. It now appears certain that the recently-launched Toyota C-HR subcompact crossover will get a Lexus counterpart. DON'T MISS: Lexus UX small crossover utility concept unveiled in Paris (Sep 2016) That model will likely borrow the design and name of...
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Toyota has now sold 10 million hybrids in 20 years, globally
Toyota has reached yet another significant milestone in global hybrid sales. The Japanese automaking giant has surpassed 10 million hybrid sales globally since the launch of the first-generation Prius in 1997. That total includes hybrids sold under Toyota's Lexus luxury brand, as well as sales of...
Stephen Edelstein -
Toyota Mirai update to fix output voltage on fuel cell electronics
Every Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell car sold anywhere in the world will soon be recalled to address an issue with its onboard electronics. The problem lies with the output voltage generated by the cars' fuel-cell stacks. Under certain driving conditions, the amount of voltage generated by the...
Stephen Edelstein -
Plug-in hybrids to catch on more quickly than electrics: Toyota
Toyota has been by far the most reluctant of recent converts to the idea that battery-electric vehicles might be practical and desirable. Only within the last year has the company moved past its decade-long insistence that all-electric cars were only suitable for tiny, low-range urban uses. Still...
John Voelcker -
Toyota shows Mirai Super Bowl ad, but only in California
As is the norm these days, the ads running during Super Bowl LI this past weekend drew almost as much attention as the game itself. Automakers are among the myriad companies that expend considerable creative and monetary resources on Super Bowl ads every year. And green cars make occasional...
Stephen Edelstein -
Carmakers, fuel and oil companies form Hydrogen Council to promote fuel cells
In addition to automakers and policymakers, battery-electric cars can count on support from a variety of advocacy groups. But grassroots support for hydrogen fuel-cell cars hasn't germinated to quite the same extent. So, in the absence of a large cadre of individual consumers to act as advocates, a...
Stephen Edelstein