toyota

What will race cars look like in 2025? The Los Angeles Auto Show, in its fifth annual Design Challenge, posed this question to automakers' design studios. Entrants from Audi, BMW, GM, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Volkswagen show off differing takes of what will be required for future racetracks.

Click here for renderings of future race cars.

We were recently given the opportunity to kick the tires of a wide variety of hybrid electric and alternative fuel vehicles.

There were a few clean diesels, including a CR-V with a 2.2-liter four cylinder that we should see reach production in a diesel variant of the 2010 Acura TSX. Ford brought out its hydrogen fuel cell, Focus, and a pair of hybrids, one of which was a plug-in model.

According to Ed Kjaer, a representative from Southern California Edison, plugging in electric hybrid vehicles on an overnight cycle is better for the electric grid, because it evens out … Read more

Aren't you momentarily stunned when your cab driver or your shuttle driver at Hertz or your local car dealership says something that really makes you think? Don't you wonder how someone so smart ended up driving you around?

Please, therefore, consider what it must be like to be Douglas Prasher.

Prasher, or as he should be known, Dr. Prasher, makes around $8 an hour as a courtesy shuttle driver for an Alabama car dealer. And he's been stunned to hear that the fruits of his work have led to a Nobel Prize for chemistry--which just happened … Read more

The 2010 Toyota Prius is scheduled to be revealed at the 2008 LA Auto Show, but there's just one small problem. We've already seen it!

Images of the new Prius leaked all over the Web earlier this week and, on Thursday, Toyota confirmed that the leaked images were--in fact--authentic.

Taking a look at the next-gen Prius, we can see that the nose gets a fairly aggressive update. I'm not a fan of the boomerang headlamps trend, but apparently we'll be seeing a lot more of it in the coming years. The new Prius' lower grill and … Read more

PARIS--More than one European carmaker is on the verge of doing something it wouldn't have considered a few months ago.

They're thinking of selling very small and fuel-efficient cars to Americans--cars designed and developed with only Europe in mind.

Two small cars that debuted at the Paris show are under consideration for the United States. One is the Audi A1 Sportback Concept, which is about 10 inches shorter than Audi's A3. The production version could hit U.S. shores.

"A year ago, I would have said no," said Peter Schwarzenbauer, Audi's worldwide sales and … Read more

After much badgering by DIYers and energy activists, Toyota relented and built a plug-in version of its Prius hybrid, showing it off at the 2008 Paris Motor Show. Noting that the Prius' hybrid system let it run on electricity only during low speed driving, a few DIYers hacked their Priuses to run longer and at higher speeds on electricity, keeping the batteries charged by plugging them in overnight and achieving over 100 mpg in some cases. For a long time, Toyota refused to acknowledge the benefits of plugging in, but now has seen the light, sort of.

The plug-in Prius … Read more

Rising world-wide gas prices triggered automakers to release a new generation of small city cars at the 2008 Paris Motor Show. These cars range from the diminutive Toyota iQ to the more conventionally-sized Hyundai i20. Engine sizes go from 1 up to 1.5 liters, with fuel economies between 40 and 50 miles per gallon. Not much cabin tech is available in these cars, although, judging from its steering wheel buttons, the new generation Ford Ka might be getting the Sync system.

Click here for photos of tiny city cars unveiled at the 2008 Paris Motor Show.

See all coverage of the 2008 Paris Motor Show. … Read more

Toyota Motor announced Tuesday that it has developed the world's first rear-window curtain shield airbag to protect rear passengers' heads in the event of a rear-end collision. The new airbag was designed for and will be implemented in its upcoming Japanese market iQ microcar. Merely looking at the photo, we weren't really sure what this new airbag does that the headrests don't already do. Digging a bit deeper we learned that the airbags work with the headrests to minimize impact to the head from a colliding vehicle or parts of the hit vehicle, helping to reduce the … Read more

TOYOTA CITY, Japan -- For a taste of future fuel-efficient styling from Toyota, go no further than the FT-HS hybrid sports car. It is counterintuitive, high-tech, and unconventional.

But global design chief Wahei Hirai says the FT-HS will form the foundation for all future styling as Toyota Motor Corp. tries to squeeze every mile from a gallon of gasoline.

The angular, low-slung FT-HS is just a concept. But its design elements already are incorporated into Toyota's iQ minicar, which will be on the streets in Japan and Europe in five months.

The new styling also will surface in upcoming hybrids, where green-conscious customers appreciate avant-garde looks.

From a design point of view, the goal is to make air-slicing cars even more slippery.

"Aerodynamics have always been important, but today they are getting more and more important," Hirai says. "We are paying very serious attention to very small details."… Read more