Toyota News
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It's a concern that comes up over and over: If I buy a hybrid car, won't I have to spend thousands of dollars to replace the battery pack in a few years? The answer is, No. Not only are automakers required to warranty the high-voltage battery packs in hybrid-electric vehicles for 8 years/100,000 miles or 10 years/150,000 miles, depending on state, but now we have data to show that those packs don't get replaced any more often than any other part. Older hybrids used as taxi cabs in cities like San Francisco have been retired with well over 300,000 miles on their battery packs, and no...
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Toyota To Service, Not Recall, Hybrid Cooling-Pump ComponentsToyota plans to service approximately 650,000 of the more than 2 million Prius hybrids it has built to date, to correct a potential flaw in a cooling pump that could cause overheating. About 390,000 of the affected models are in the U.S. While the company hasn't yet released details on what it...
John Voelcker -
2010 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid Prototype: Drive ReportThe main thing to understand about the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid is that it's not an "electric car" as many people use the term. Yes, it plugs in to any electric socket to recharge the 5.2-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack. And, yes, its Hybrid Synergy Drive system uses electric torque...
John Voelcker -
Gran Turismo Game Goes Green: Virtual Electric CarsDepending on your demographic, the new PlayStation 3 Gran Turismo 5 (GT5) video game is either your single most essential purchase this year, or a completely baffling piece of technology that you'll probably never buy. Ironically, the same could be said for the current wave of electric cars we've...
Antony Ingram -
Toyota Hops On the Direct Injection And Turbocharging BandwagonToyota is the latest automaker to announce it’s headed down the downsized engine path as it strives for improved fuel economy, following the likes of Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai, all of which have announced similar plans in the recent past. Toyota has long been the champion of hybrid...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Everybody Hertz Sometimes: CODA Lifts Mood With Rental ContractYou have to feel a little sorry for CODA automotive. A few months ago the Santa Monica firm was striding towards a December launch of its 2011 Sedan. Then as a prequel to announcing its first all-electric car would be delayed by nearly 9 months its Senior VP of Sales and Marketing left, closely...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
For all the grief Toyota Prius hybrid drivers get, you'd think they were some deranged combination of green storm troopers and mentally defective traffic impediments. But every now and then, a Prius driver does do something jaw-droppingly idiotic. Take, for instance, the unidentified (and possibly inebriated) driver of this black 2010 2004-2009 Prius. He was filmed during a traffic stop at 11:20 pm last Saturday night by the video camera mounted inside the police car--into which the Prius slammed, moving backwards. The driver is shown getting out of the car, and then jumping back in when he...
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2010 LA Auto Show: Toyota-Tesla RAV4 EV, Under the HoodThere's a lot we don't know about the 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV that Japan's largest automaker is prototyping with Silicon Valley startup Tesla Motors. That includes the battery pack size, traction motor power, and stated range--although 100 miles is the goal, according to Jim Lentz, president of Toyota...
John Voelcker -
2010 LA Auto Show: 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV Powered By TeslaAs they say, everything old is new again. Fourteen years after it launched its very first RAV4 crossover at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Toyota returned to LA to launch an all-electric version of its latest RAV4. And this one is, as the logos in a teaser photo released earlier said, "powered by...
John Voelcker -
2010 Los Angeles Auto Show: SoCal Edison Launches EV WebsiteThe 2010 Los Angles Auto Show is nearly upon us, and we're getting excited for the wealth of new electric cars on display at the show. It's not just about the cars themselves though - equally imporant are the companies displaying EV-related technology. One such company is Southern California...
Antony Ingram -
Revenge Of The Electric Car Trailer Release To Facebook FansWho killed the electric car? Chances are that if you've watched the film that poses this question, you'll have some idea of how the electric car fizzled out and died before its 21st-Century re-birth. 2011 will bring a sequel to the original documentary titled "Revenge Of The Electric Car". As with...
Antony Ingram -
Magnetic Induction Technology: Charging Without Wires & PlugsThe world of EVs is a strange business. The jump from gasoline and diesel cars to EVs is akin to the jump at the end of the 19th Century from horse and carriage to motor vehicles, in the change in mindset and widespread adoption of infrastructure required. Charging in particular is an area that...
Antony Ingram -
Yesterday, with just one week to go before the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show, Toyota released a few teaser pictures of the much-anticipated love-child of Toyota and Tesla - and told us when it will be unveiled. The Toyota 2013 RAV4 Electric Vehicle is based upon Toyota’s popular compact crossover SUV gas-guzzler, but has an electric soul. And on November 17th at 2:30pm Pacific, the public will get to see it for the first time. Announced earlier this year as part of an ongoing partnership between Tesla Motors and Toyota the RAV4 EV promises to offer a modern take on the classic RAV4 EV...
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Tesla-Powered Electric RAV4: Initially Just "A Few Thousand"One of the more eagerly awaited green vehicles at next week's 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show is the electric RAV4 crossover that Toyota will launch in partnership with Tesla Motors. Now we learn that the initial order is for little more than a test fleet of perhaps 2,000 vehicles, according to Tesla...
John Voelcker -
Plug In America: EV Public Service AnnouncementsWe've covered Plug In America before on AllCarsElectric. The group is at the forefront of the EV movement in the U.S. and aims to promote usage of electric vehicles and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Now, the group has released a series of humorous "Public Service Announcements" (PSAs) written...
Antony Ingram -
EV Vs Gas Vs Diesel: Breaking Down The CostsThanks to the limited availability of electric cars on the market thus far and lack of parity between EV models and their gasoline or diesel counterparts, comparing the relative costs of the three isn't the easiest of tasks. The human race wouldn't have got very far if we'd only ever done what was...
Antony Ingram -
EVs All The Way Down: EV Tractors At Ford's Michigan PlantCar assembly will never be the cleanest of processes, despite the efforts of people like Gordon Murray whose i-Stream production method for his T25 and T27 microcars is said to reduce the energy of car production by as much as 80 percent. Still, some companies do make the effort to bring down the...
Antony Ingram -
Panasonic To Join Parade of Tesla Investors With Toyota, DaimlerAs these things often happen, it was rumored in the Japanese press and then confirmed hours later. Panasonic, the huge Japanese consumer electronics conglomerate, is investing in Tesla Motors, building on a previous agreement to work together on large-format lithium-ion cells for electric car...
John Voelcker -
Shop owners in the sprawling Japanese industrial town of Hamamatsu are worried: They see a future where their day jobs are under threat, and even worse, by the very companies they are in business to support. What is this great thread? Globalisation? Copyright infringement? Neither - their business is autoparts, and their livelihood is under threat by the future invasion of electric cars to the Japanese market. Hamamatsu under threat When you make your living selling mufflers, reconditioned engines, spark plugs, filters and all manner of oils for the millions of cars on Japanese roads, the...
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Five New Electric Cars We'll See At The 2010 L.A. Auto ShowOne of the biggest motoring events of the year is just around the corner - the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show. Manufacturers will be out in force with the best of their product lineup and a combination of glitzy stands and glitzy girls to make the metal seem that little bit more appealing. What we're...
Antony Ingram -
Lexus Surprises With New Lexus CT 200hLexus didn’t get as good of a response from debut of the Lexus HS 250h last year as they would have liked, but that seems to have spurred them to make something even better. Let us introduce the all-new Lexus CT 200h. At first glance you might mistake the CT 200h for a Mazdaspeed3, but this...
Jonathan McGrew -
Russian Billionaire Gets Gassy To Go Green: Prokhorov City CarRussia. Onion domes, remnants of Communism, enormous natural-gas reserves, and a fierce love of Vodka. These elements have now somehow combined to convince Mikhail Prokhorov--reportedly Russia's wealthiest man, new owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, newly-minted publisher of the New...
Nelson Ireson -
Is Demand For Electric Cars Overhyped? J.D. Power Thinks SoWith a fanfare going up for every new electric car that hits the market at the moment, you'd be forgiven for thinking we're only a few short steps away from widespread EV adoption. According to marketing information services firm J.D. Power though, this might not be the case. According to the...
Antony Ingram -
2010 Los Angeles Auto Show: Honda Electric Car to Make DebutHonda will jump into the electric-car and plug-in-hybrid fray at the 2010 Los Angeles auto show with a new EV concept. The automaker also confirmed it will lay out the plans for a new plug-in hybrid platform during the L.A. show, which opens to the media on November 17. Honda's entries into the...
Martin Padgett