Toyota News

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt pre-production prototype, January 2010

    Now we know: The first two plug-in cars from major manufacturers will go head-to-head on warranties and lease prices: $350 a month for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, $349 for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Now the choice shifts to other measures, including electric and overall range, as well as the plug-in perks that states like California offer to early adopters to encourage them to opt for electric cars. This is where it gets interesting. While California loves the Nissan Leaf, current regulations deny Chevy Volt buyers two significant perks: a $5,000 rebate, and permission to drive solo in HOV Lanes...

  • 2010 Toyota Prius
    Next Toyota Prius To Be Built in U.S.--But Not Until 2016

    The convoluted twists and turns of possible Prius production in the U.S. have taken another unexpected bend. A Toyota executive has now told Reuters that the company intends to build the quintessential hybrid in the States, but not until its next generation is launched. That would be in 2016, since...

  • Toyota Prius body damage
    Sounds For Silent EVs, More Data, Same Result: Not Needed?

    When we wrote about the debate over whether silent electric vehicles should have noise legislated into them, we obviously hit a nerve. Now EV enthusiast Mark Larsen has added further data to his original analysis of 1994-2008 traffic death figures from the Fatality Reporting System maintained by...

  • GM EV1
    GM To Build All-Electric Cars Again: A Very Few, Just For Tests

    The big news in green cars today will be the noon release of pricing and ordering information for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, GM's upcoming range-extended compact electric car. But GM had more noteworthy news today, all the way from the other side of the world. General Motors, the company pilloried...

  • Toyota Prius body damage
    Sounds For Silent EVs: Solving a Problem That May Not Exist

    It's a wonderful TV news flash: Blind people in peril from killer electric cars! News at 11. The fear is that electric vehicles are so silent that blind people can't hear them coming, so new draft safety regulations may now require electric vehicles to emit sounds. There's just one problem...

  • 2010 Prius vs. 2007 Prius
    One Man Fights Toyota And Wins

    It’s not every day that a small guy gets embroiled in a lawsuit with an automotive giant like Toyota and actually wins but that’s exactly what happened in the case of Alex Severinsky and his claims of patent-infringement. The dispute actually dates back several years and surrounds...

  • Toyota RAV4 facelift for the 2010 Geneva Motor Show

    Ending weeks of speculation, Tesla and Toyota announced today that they plan to develop an all-electric version of Toyota's RAV4 small crossover, using Tesla's battery and electric drive technology in Toyota's vehicle. Last week, chairman Akio Toyoda announced that Toyota was already working to fit Tesla battery packs into test vehicles. Then, news reports had identified the two vehicles Tesla was developing for Toyota as the RAV4 and the Corolla sedan. Now the joint announcement, issued in Tokyo and Palo Alto, California, has confirmed the accuracy of the RAV4 reports, following just a few...

  • Toyota RAV4e electric vehicle, San Francisco, March 2010
    Are Tesla And Toyota Re-Electrifying RAV4EV, Going Supercar?

     We've known for some time that Toyota and Tesla are planning on working together on an EV, despite protests to the contrary. But with two separate rumors breaking today this partnership looks ever more likely to produce not one, but potentially two very interesting cars. That's if the rumor mill...

  • Tesla Roadster Sport at Boulder, Colorado Dealership
    UPDATE: Tesla To Send Toyota 2 Cars Converted To Electric Power

    [UPDATE: Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes says the original report via Bloomberg that Tesla would develop two separate electric models for Toyota was erroneous, and may have been further confused later by the fact that Tesla had developed two prototype RAV4 vehicles.] ++++++ UPDATE: Citing Japanese...

  • 2009 Toyota FT-EV Concept
    Report: Toyota BEV And Two Prius Variants Coming In 2012

    Next year will see several major automakers test the waters with their new electric offerings, with cars like the new Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt and Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid all available by then. However, the real electric onslaught is expected to come in 2012, a timeframe that will allow...

  • Tesla Roadster final assembly, Menlo Park, California, April 2009
    Toyota Already Building a Car To Test Tesla's Battery, It Says

    One of the many unknowns about Toyota's partnership with Tesla was whether it would result in a jointly produced car. That won't be known for many months yet, but Toyota has already taken a first step: It's building Tesla's battery into a test car so it can compare the Silicon Valley startup's...

  • CA 'Access OK' Clean Air Vehicle carpool lane sticker
    California Yanks Prius Perks: No More Hybrid HOV-Lane Access

    You may remember that in California, 85,000 lucky owners of three hybrid vehicles were granted special stickers giving them access to High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes, even with only a single occupant in the car. Well, their luck runs out on December 31, the last day those stickers are valid. While...

  • Toyota RAV4e electric vehicle, San Francisco, March 2010

    One of the best parts of the electric-vehicle world is the camaraderie. Someone knows someone who passes us along to a friend who knows a guy ... you know the story. Which is how we ended up in San Francisco on a sunny Friday, driving a well-used--but still reliable--example of one of the highest-volume modern electric cars built to date, the Toyota RAV4 EV. First, Think As EV advocate Marc Geller explains it, he became convinced a decade ago that an electric car was the best way he could reduce his consumption of oil and his carbon footprint. After 9/11, when his aging French station wagon...

  • Wrecked Toyota Prius owned by Elizabeth James, photo by Ted James, from Houston Press
    How Do First Responders Act Around a Crashed Hybrid or EV?

    Once more, a reader question prompts us to share the answer with our entire green car audience. In this case, it's about how first responders should approach accidents that involve vehicles with high-voltage battery packs, whether they're conventional hybrids (e.g. Toyota Prius) or upcoming...

  • VW GOLF TDI_7
    Car Batteries, Diesel Golfs, Prius Crashes: What's the Link?

    Like many site editors, we read our traffic stats religiously. Perhaps unlike other site editors, ours frequently make us laugh. We try to provide practical information on navigating your way through the confusing claims made about 'green' cars, whether they're hybrids, clean diesels, or just very...

  • 2010 Honda Fit Sport
    Top Ten Places a Small Car Comes In Handy

    Small cars sometimes get a bad reputation in the American market; I mean let’s face it, no one wants to hear, “Hey that is really small.” Right? Well, maybe that would be a compliment if you had the right combination of situations. No, we aren’t talking about extensions of the human body...

  • 2010 Toyota Corolla sold in South Africa, shown in Die Waterkant, Cape Town
    A Tale of Two Toyota Corollas: U.S. Buyers Get More For Less

    When auto editors go on vacation, we rent cars too. Which is how a pair of very plain 2010 Toyota Corollas in South Africa taught us a few lessons about fuel economy, green value, and what other countries drive. The bottom line: U.S. buyers get a lot more car, for a lot less money, than elsewhere...

  • Third-Generation Toyota Prius
    Toyota Sells 2.5 Million Hybrids Worldwide

    Hybrid vehicles have been alternately portrayed as the saviours of modern transportation or the last gasp of the dying oil-based economy. Either way, Toyota has capitalized on their popularity with its world-beating Prius, even managing to sell more than 2.5 million hybrids worldwide--and at a...

  • 2010 Toyota Prius

    Sales will be more than 1.4 million units.

  • Alyssa Price driving ‘Pearl’
    Video: What Would A Toyota Prius Say About You?

    We already know that many Toyota Prius owners have a very special bond with their cars. It’s this connection with the Prius that many rival automakers would love to emulate but are struggling to do so. Mention the word “hybrid” and the first vehicle almost everyone will think of is...

  • Alyssa Price driving ‘Pearl’
    Video: Pearl’s Story – The Life Of A Toyota Prius

    Imagine if your car could talk. What would it say about you? While for the immediate future, this is largely an impossibility, one aspiring actress based on the “West Side” has envisaged just what it could be like if cars were able to talk. Alyssa Price, the proud owner of a Toyota Prius and...

  • 2012 Tesla Model S prototype
    Tesla Opens Up About Its New Old Factory

    The ink's barely dry on the Tesla - Toyota deal that gives the startup electric-car maker a new manufacturing home. But today, Tesla's going public with some details on how it plans to use the former NUMMI facility in Fremont, California, to build its mainstream 2012 Tesla Model S sedan. The former...

  • Used car salesman
    What Will The True Residual Value of a Used EV Be? Toyota May Provide the Answer.

    If you're lucky you may already be on a waiting list for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Or perhaps you've decided to get the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. If your next car is electric it could easily immunize you from fluctuating gas prices and ensure low running costs. But what will that shiny new electric car be...

  • 2010 Toyota Prius
    How Many Million Priuses Would Offset the Gulf Oil Spill?

    One million gallons a day is a lot of oil. According to estimates late last week, that could be the daily rate of oil escaping from the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. To put that number in perspective, we decided to look at what it would take to compensate just for the lost gasoline...

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