Announced , finally gave us some more details about the was the all-electric EV will be sold to the general public during the 26th Electric Vehicle Symposium in Los Angeles today. The important number? The MSRP for what Toyota calls a “fully equipped” RAV4 EV is $49,800 and will be available before the end of the year.
Toyota says the RAV4 EV’s range is 100 miles and that the car will charge from empty in approximately six hours on a 240V/40A charger. The new RAV4 EV has LED and halogen headlights and it has special “environmental blue” color emblems on the outside. The vehicle will be made at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Inc., plant in Woodstock, Ontario. The first generation of the new RAV4 EV was . Our First Drive report is .
With a battery and powertrain designed by , the new RAV4 EV certainly appears to be one of the new breed of . We had heard that the RAV4 EV will be lease only, but the official press release says the car “will go on sale in late summer 2012 through select dealers, initially in four major California metropolitan markets.” Those markets are Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles/Orange County and San Diego and the news matches the rumor we heard last year, that sales about be In all, Toyota hopes to sell just 2,600 units in the next three years. , you’ve got nothing to worry about.
Those looking to get around the Nürburgring with a quickness will soon be able to hop into a . The luxury automaker has announced it will bolster its fleet at the infamous German track with the addition of an XJ Supersport. The-510 horsepower sedan will feature a few tweaks to set it apart from its kin, including matte grey paint and both the Sport and Speed packages. The latter of those two nudges the vehicle’s top speed from 155 to 174 miles per hour. also nixed the standard leather seats for a set of four race buckets, each with their own four-point harnesses.
A full roll cage also takes care of keeping everyone safe as they rocket around Green Hell. The XJ Supersport will begin giving Jaguar fans rides around the Nurburgring at speed sometime soon. for the full press release.
BMW, , and are among the eight U.S. and German automakers that will demonstrate a single-port fast-charging system for electric vehicles at the Electric Vehicle Symposium 26 (EV26) in Los Angeles starting next week.
, , parent and will also show off the so-called DC-fast system, which will be able to recharge most battery-electric vehicles in as little as 15 minutes.
With a combination AC and DC charging capabilities, the DC-fast system is supposed to start sales by the end of the year and will enable U.S. and German plug-ins to be able to be recharged at most public charging stations while also accommodating high-powered fast-charging stations. The International Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has officially tapped the system as the standard for fast-charging.
Electric-vehicle proponents consider the establishment of a fast-charging standard to be an important key to plug-in vehicle adoption because the availability of publicly accessible fast chargers that can recharge a vehicle in minutes instead of hours makes range anxiety a moot point. Pike Research said last year that annual revenue generated by makers of electric-vehicle charging equipment will increase more than tenfold between 2011 and 2017 to about $4.3 billion.
Still, the fast-charging issue is far from settled because a separate fast-charging standard – – has been proposed by the Japanese automotive industry. , , and parent Fuji Heavy Industries are all partners in the CHAdeMO Association.
Yes, it’s spring time in Indiana, and although ahead of the drop of the green flag, it’s time for another One Lap of America.
Having been part of the timing and scoring team for well over a decade, we tend to see a lot of the same faces and sheetmetal year in and year out, though there’s always a steady stream of newcomers. Every few races, however, there seems to be a bumper crop of new cars that show up as old ones get tired and drivers find something different to play with. This is clearly one of those times, perhaps brought about by the dominance of the over the last several years. As a result, there are a glut of the Japanese supercars in the fold, along with other noteworthy new models including an , a and , not to mention a factory-prepped . As ever, there’s a brace of and models of various vintages, along with a or two and a 430. There’s even an and an incredible sounding , also running with factory support.
Unfortunately, one key classic will be notably absent from the paddock this year: Brock Yates. Father of One Lap Of America and the legendary Cannonball Run that spawned it, Yates’ health has been deteriorating due to Alzheimer’s. Yates’ son, Brock Jr. has been ably running the event for many years, but this is the first time that .
As has become the usual, this year’s event kicks off in South Bend, Indiana at title sponsor Tire Rack’s massive headquarters with a wet skidpad event. The motley crew of madmen and their motors will then jog down the road a few miles to the South Bend Motor Speedway (a paved oval) before hoofing it over to Autobahn Country Club’s road course in Illinois. After that, it’s off to a string of road courses starting with scenic Pacific Junction, Iowa, for the Mid America Motorplex, then on to Oklahoma’s Hallett Motor Racing Circuit before heading to High Plains Raceway in Colorado. After that, it’s off to Motorsports Park Hastings in Nebraska followed by a northwestern jog to Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota. Then it’s over to Wisconsin’s legendary Road America before the sleepless and bedraggled horde stumble back into South Bend next Saturday, April 14 for a final dry skidpad event. Got all that? If you don’t, you can check out a map .
As we’ll be working the event, we won’t have the ability to give you daily updates on the rally’s progress, but if you’re interested in keeping tabs on the action, check out and , both of which figure to have live updates as the race gets underway this morning. In the meantime, you can check out our massive gallery above. It doesn’t have every one of the roughly 75 that are scheduled to race, but if you are new to One Lap, it’ll give you a good idea of the automotive diversity on display.
Apparently, the world’s population of talking frogs have turned their allegiance from Budweiser and are now shilling for of Australia. At least, those that haven’t been smashed into great green globs of greasy, grimy cane toad guts.
Let’s set the scene: A pair of Australian cane toads – the species, native to Central and South America, was imported into Australia in an unsuccessful attempt to control Beetle populations – are having a nighttime chat on a random road somewhere in Oz. The subject matter ranges from the tastiness and arousing properties of the toads’ own back secretions to the velocity with which a four-cylinder car can travel. In this case, the car is powered by one of Ford’s turbocharged EcoBoost engines.
And then… disaster strikes. It’s certainly an odd advertisement, but at least it’s unique. Oh, and if you’re a member of PETA, you might want to look away. See for yourself by scrolling down .
Motor Trend reports may have plans to resurrect the Supra name, or at least a new sports coupe to fill the role of the long-dead two door. Hot on the heels of sports cars like the and , designers are reportedly working on dusting off the 2007 FT-HS Concept for another go at life. Paired with the company’s GRMN MRS prototype chassis, the vehicle will likely deliver up to 400 horsepower from a 3.5-liter V6 engine and an electric motor.
If the notion of a hybrid Supra is enough to ruffle your feathers, you may want to stop reading right now. Unlike the previous sports coupe, the new model will make use of an all-wheel-drive system. Still reading? MT reports the machine will put power to all four wheels via a CVT pulled from the .
That noise? It’s the sound of a lonely sad trombone echoing down the halls of the internet.
Of course, all of this seems to be little more than a few educated guesses stuck together. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda has voiced his support for a Supra successor in the past, and if green-lit, the model could see production by 2015. Early guesses say the car would bow with a $60,000 price tag, which would make for a perfect argument against sticking a new NSX in your garage.
Oh, the gas tax, always a contentious issue. We’ve covered it but now the Congressional Budget Office is reminding us that the time has come to move well beyond simple discussion and politics: the Highway Trust Fund is not getting enough money to pay for the transportation infrastructure that America needs.
As you can see in the chart above, the Fund has not taken in more money than it spent since 2001, except for one time in 2006. In 2008, 2009 and 2010, the Highway Fund got money from the General Fund to pay for things like highway repairs and various mass transit programs.
Since the Highway Trust Fund is mostly paid for by the gas tax, that number plays a big roll in how much money America has to build bridges. Before we move on, though, it’s time for a question: What was the last year the U.S. gas tax was raised? The answer and more can be .
The , the most popular hybrid in the world, was also the most popular plug-in vehicle in U.S. last month.
Compared to sales of the and the , which , respectively, the quietly sold 1,654 copies in April, reports PluginCars. With such strong name recognition and pent-up demand for a Prius with a cord, this shouldn’t really have been a surprise. But it still kind of is.
sold more Prius models in the U.S. last month than ever before in April (March 2012 was ), even though . The four members of the “Prius family” sold a combined 25,168 units, an increase of 126.9 percent compared to April 2011 (which was right after the Japanese tsunami). Overall, Toyota and sold 32,593 hybrids last month, 30,126 of them wearing the Toyota badge, 2,467 of them the upper-class Lexus models.
Last year, Toyota said it . Since Toyota doesn’t break out model numbers, we’re not sure what the total is for the year thus far, but 1,654 plug-ins a month is enough for the company hit that target. Scroll down for Toyota’s official sales results.
is taking its on U.S. tour for a few months. One of the stops between Toronto Tuck World and the Volvo Ocean Race in Miami was Wendover, Utah, to attempt a couple of record-breaking speed runs.
Mean Green uses a 16-cylinder engine that puts out 1,900-horsepower, tied to an electric motor that adds 200 hp and 885 pound-feet. With that package, the Swedish Viking Speed Records Team and pilot Boije Overbrink were aiming for 165 miles per hour in the flying kilometer. They didn’t quite make that lofty goal, but they did well enough to break not one, but two world records. for the story of the day.
Yellow cabs are synonymous with New York. It doesn’t matter if it’s an old Ford Crown Victoria, an even older Checker Cab or the new Nissan NV200: paint it that deep yellow and put a dome light on it, and you’re looking at a New York taxicab. But the Big Apple is about to get a new type of taxi, painted a different color altogether.
We’re talking about the new Boro Taxi which the city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission has just launched. Targeted at New York’s outer boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island (as well as Northern Manhattan) – the Boro Taxis can take just about any vehicle you’d expect to see in yellow (including the NV200), painted a bright shade of “apple green” (that looks like matte lime to our eyes) and put them on the streets of the outer boroughs exclusively where it’s notoriously difficult to hail a cab.
The color was apparently chosen to stand out from existing vehicles on New York City roads, including private automobiles (because who would paint their own car that color?), police and emergency vehicles and traditional yellow cabs. The first 6,000 of the 18,000 permits will be issued by the commission starting in June. So the next time you’re looking to hail a ride in New York anywhere but Manhattan, look for this shade of green and raise your hand.
Inc. wants self driving cars on the road sooner rather than later.
It knows its autonomous vehicles work – engineers have already put its fleet of self-driving vehicles through 250,000 miles of testing. And they’re planning to put another 750,000 testing miles on their .
Now, executives are approaching car makers about building the self-driving vehicles, according to The Detroit News.
“From giving the technology away to licensing it to working with Tier 1s, Tier 2s, working with the OEMs, building a car with them, everything is open and we’re trying to figure out which paths make the most sense,” said Google project manager Anthony Levandowski last week at the . “We’re talking to basically every car company to see what their level of excitement is and how do we work with them.”
A Google spokesperson later added, “We’re talking with lots of auto companies about a variety of topics, but we haven’t decided how we may make our technology available to consumers. As Anthony said at the SAE conference in Detroit, ‘all options are open.’”
Levandowski says Google is racing forward to get self-driving vehicles on the road as soon as possible. It has begun talking to insurance companies to figure out how much it might cost to insure a self-driving car, according to . One of the sticky issues: If a self-driving vehicle causes an accident, is the driver responsible or the company that made the vehicle?
Google officials say they expect to mathematically prove that computer-driven vehicles are safer than those operated by humans, thus insurance prices should be lower. No word yet if that logic will fly, but insurance companies do love math, algorithms and actuary tables…
The sales figures you see below aren’t quite what they seem. If you look at just the left column where the battle between green and red cells is almost at a draw, you might think that April 2012 was a step backwards in terms of sales momentum for the auto industry. That column, however, is practically irrelevant this month.
Shift your head a little to the right and read the DSR (Daily Sales Rate) column. That’s the important column this month. People usually ignore this column because they don’t understand its purpose or because its data looks so similar to the left column, but this month it means everything.
Why? Because there were 24 selling days for the auto industry last month, versus 27 selling days in April 2011. Usually there’s only a single-day variance between months or no variance at all, but three selling days is a chasm to overcome and means that if you’re only comparing raw numbers like the left column does, the entire industry was at a three-day disadvantage last month compared to the same month one year ago.
The DSR column, on the other hand, shows the change in average number of vehicles sold per day during April of this year and last. This is the more accurate representation of how each automaker performed in April, and as you can see, nearly all continued their momentum of increased sales with the usual suspects occupying those bottom red cells.
Check out how the entire auto industry did in the monthly sales chart below, and visit our By the Numbers section to see all past months.
*Brands and companies are displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 24 selling days in April 2012 versus 27 selling days in April 2011, so there will be a difference between monthly sales volume and the average daily sales rate (DSR) for each brand/company. Also, brands are combined and reported as companies only if their sales figures are released jointly.
There could not be a more bland teaser for the upcoming all-electric “all new” EV than the one just released: silver sheetmetal with a badge that simply reads “Electric.” To see the rest of the vehicle, we will have to wait until the Electric Vehicle Symposium () gets started in Los Angeles next week. Luckily, we will be in LA with a camera or two and will bring you the full details from the show Monday, May 7. For now, all we know is what we’ve learned about the prototype that Toyota and have been showing for a while. For example, it will likely . .
Speaking of EVS, what’s kind of surprising is that this year is the 26th edition of the show. Yes, even as we’re just seeing the dawn of the modern EV era, some groups have been working on these vehicles for decades. It’s a long road to get off of gasoline.
Rumors that would some day build the in the U.S. have bounced around for years, with often being cited as the most likely candidate. After that plan was , a new version of the same story returned in 2010 when a Toyota executive vice president said . Given the on-again, off-again history of the story, we weren’t surprised when not much was officially said about the matter in the last two years. That changed today.
Koei Saga, senior managing officer in charge of drivetrain R&D at Toyota, has informed Automotive News that Toyota is now thinking of making the Prius in the U.S. by 2015 and wants to get hybrid drivetrain components – motors, inverters, batteries (likely lithium-ion packs) – from North American suppliers. The base fourth-gen Prius will probably still use nickel-metal hydride batteries, but the batteries made in the U.S. might be li-ion.
A 2015 timetable means it is likely that America would make the fourth-gen Prius model, which is due around that time. The reason this story keeps coming back is because it makes sense to build the Prius in the States. and expected to grow, so extra production somewhere will almost certainly be needed to meet demand. Plus, a strong yen means that Prius vehicles built in America would likely come at a lower cost to Toyota.
Toyota currently makes the hybrid in the U.S. at its plant in Georgetown, KY. The question as to whether the U.S. Prius would be made there, at Toyota’s Mississippi plant, at the plant in Fremont, CA (formerly known as NUMMI) – where have also floated around in the past – or somewhere else completely will need to be answered at another time.
The new Opel minicar has been so long in gestation that it has worn three names (so far). From the Junior and Allegra, we are now being told that it will now be called the Opel Adam, no doubt a nod to company founder Adam Opel.
Still clothed in enough camo to hide a barn, we can’t tell much about how it looks, but with the latest spy shots we do know its sporting chops have been tested at the Nürburgring. That’s a necessity since a longer version of the Adam’s platform will go under the next Opel/Vauxhall Corsa. Beyond that, we aren’t sure what will power it at launch but three-cylinder engines co-developed with are . The electric version, however, .
At 3.70 meters, the Adam extends 15 cm beyond the Volkswagen Up! but is smaller than the Opel Agila. It is expected to go on sale in the Spring of 2013 for a base price of under €10,000 (Roughly $13,000 USD). If it does, that would be a turnabout from last year when former Opel chief Nick Reilly said the “Junior” and cost more than the larger Agila, which currently ($14k), but still wouldn’t to the .
Stay tuned, for those and other mysteries will begin to be solved on May 8, which is when Opel will officially announce the car. So the rumors say. The showcase reveal will come at this year’s .
So, we think the crew at our sister site have lost their minds. Either that or they’re trying to steal our jobs.
While nominally a show and blog about mobility, most weeks Translogic is discovering all manner of geeky automotive technology, while driving alternative-fuel vehicles powered by , , , or they can find. This week, however, for the 100th show, they straight-up went to the track to drive supercars. At Disney World. Speedway.
Take that, greenies and transportation wonks. Everyone loves to flog roadgoing sex from and , even – make that especially – Translogic host Bradley Hasemeyer.
Details on the pair of Dear Qin concepts that unveiled at the this week are sparse, but they do hint at something interesting coming to every market where the Japanese automaker sells cars.
Calling them “global-strategic concepts,” Toyota says the sedan and hatchback versions of the Dear Qin models have “a design aiming to attract more people to the user base.” With that curious statement in mind, the first promotional video for the Dear Qin models (which you can watch by ) is both language- and information-free, emphasizing the design of the cars for a global audience. With explosions and lightning, of course.
Reports have said that Toyota is working on a new global, front-wheel drive model that is supposed to be launched in 2013. We can imagine these concepts foreshadowing those cars, and hope we get a pair of highly efficient compacts out of the design process. We’ll skip the explosions and lightning, though.
It’s not the most pronounceable model name, but that’s not our problem, is it?
debuted its sharply styled Yundong Shuangqing hybridconcept at the today, announcing that a production version will be sold in China at some point in the future. The Yundong Shuangqing was joined on stage by the Dear Qin compact and the GT 86 rear-wheel-drive sports car.
Toyota developed the Yundong Shuangqing’s hybrid powertrain mainly at the automaker’s research and development plant in Changshu, China. “We would like to put smiles on the faces of our Chinese customers with hybrid technology,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda said in prepared remarks at the show. “I want the people of China to be able to experience the beauty of hybrid technology through a hybrid car born in China.”
In 2005, China became the first place outside of Japan where the hybrid was built when Sichuan FAW Toyota Motor Co. Ltd. started making the third-generation model. And two years ago, GAC Toyota Motor Co., which is in China’s Guangdong Province, started making the Hybrid.
Earlier this month, Honda specifically for the Chinese market under either its moniker or the brand in order to capitalize on what’s likely to be surging car sales in that country. Honda will introduce the , and Hybrids in China later this year, and will likely sell its promised hybrid-powered Acura NSX sports car in China as well.
has been building the in Greensburg, Indiana, since 2008, but now the company’s newest American assembly plant has some variety on its lines. The joined its mass-market relative at the 2.1 million square-foot facility yesterday.
Honda is building both the standard ILX and the ILX Hybrid at Honda Manufacturing Indiana, which is the only plant slated for assembly of the new compact . Greensburg will continue to build Civic sedans, including the , both for domestic consumption and export. Since the ILX is based on the Civic, the two cars sharing an assembly line is a natural.
The ILX on May 22, at a starting price of $25,900 plus $895 for destination. to read the full press release.
It takes a lot to grow jaded at the thought of a one-of-a-kind, seven-figure, record-breakingsupercar, but that’s what’s happened after this many years of special edition . The latest: a unique version of the Grand Sport roadster created for the and one lucky (read: obscenely wealthy) customer.
Called the Wei Long edition, this one-off celebrates the Year of the Dragon. It was born out of the same collaboration with Königliche Porzellan Manufaktur that gave us the previous blue-and-white marbled edition. Only this one is white with red trim.
Like what you see? It can be yours for €1.58 million – chump change over two million greenbacks. Scope it out in the high-res image gallery and the press release .
The sales figures you see below aren’t quite what they seem. If you look at just the left column where the battle between 
