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Comments
Camry wagon
The Matrix is definitely still in the product line for the Next Gen Corolla. However Toyota is going to debut this new vehicle to the dealers at the annual meeting next month. It should be here within 12 months. Given that almost nothing can be kept a total secret I doubt that this new vehicle is somehting that noone has seen before. It's probably a vehicle like the Blade that exists in Japan but we've not seen yet.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
If fuel does end up in the $5 or $6 range in the near term a lot of buyers will be looking for other options than a 17 mpg truck/SUV. These buyers 'expect' to pay about $30000 for a vehicle, or more. They also don't want to be 'forced' into driving a basic trim with a 4 banger drive train.
Keep it (well) under 3000 pounds, give it the proper goods for road-handling, and people won't mind that it only has 4 cylinders. In fact, they will be glad of some fuel savings, I would think.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Didn't that fail already? :confuse:
I'd work on a $15-20k pick-up truck, for either Scion or 'Yota.
Most Tacomas are over $20k anyway.
They can make 100k sales on it, if done right.
DrFill
Now with fuel likely never coming down again and $5-$6 per gallon very very possible my belief is that they see the demise of the SUV down the road. However do these current owners want to go back to a sedan and lose the 'utility' functionality?
The progression now of vehicles is
hatches/wagons
Yaris 3 door
xD
xB
Matrix
Nothing above $21000 ( Blade? )
'Traditional' utility vehicles
RAV beginning at $22000 to $30000
Highlander beginning at $29000 to $43000
4Runner beginning at $30000 to $43000
Sequoia beginning at $36000 to $51000
Land Cruiser new now at $63000
There's a continuation all the way from $12000 to $50000+ but at $22000 a buyer is forced to go from a 'wagon' to a higher profile vehicle, the RAV, a crossover.
There are recent pictures of the JDM Blade over on TN. It's very nice looking IMO. I'm sure it's about Camry-size.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Toyota bucking the trend - like that's something new
And leading the trend were America's Big Three-General Motors, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler-which all saw a net worsening of their fleet-average CO2 emissions.
Bucking the trend, the group said, were Toyota and BMW, which trimmed their CO2 emissions rates while gaining market share.
"The ability of Toyota and BMW to gain market share while cutting emissions is a clear example of innovative design paying off for the bottom line and the environment," John DeCicco, senior fellow, automotive strategies at Environmental Defense, said in a news release.
Toyota's CO2 emissions rate dropped by three percent and its carbon burden grew more than any other Big Six manufacturers'-125 percent-but that was due solely to increased sales.
Read the last line - but that was due solely to increased sales.
GM, Ford and Chrysler should be leading in this category since they all lost shares. :surprise:
DrFill
:sick:
Source: Corporate Carbon Burden from Fuel Crisis Past
I'll take the experts' words over yours. Also, the 125% is during a span of 15 years (from 1990 to 2005). It is very likely that Toyota's sale number has increased 125% over the last 15 years.
Yo Doc, you see what I am up against here...
Use The Force, Lou! :surprise:
DrFill
Toyota is reducing it's pollution and HAS been for many years.
Anyone else sold a million hybrids?
Here is more evidence:
Toyota Shines again, comes in second to Honda by a NOSE, even having much larger vehicles in their fleet
Honda and Toyota had better-than-average global warming scores in every class in which they competed. Despite producing pickup trucks and large SUVs, Toyota's use of emissions-cutting technology across its entire fleet helped it to pull up just behind Honda, which did not compete in these vehicle classes.
"Toyota's ranking shows that size is no excuse for a dirty fleet," MacKenzie said. "All of the automakers have the technology today to make all of their vehicles, from two-seaters to four-by-fours, a lot cleaner. And given the Supreme Court ruling confirming carbon dioxide and other global warming emissions are pollutants, it's likely that federal or state efforts will succeed in requiring automakers to put that technology to work."
And more:
The UCS analysis showed hybrids helped improve environmental performance while diesels generally held automakers back. Volkswagen's diesel engines, for example, slightly improved its global warming score, but significantly dragged down its smog score. Hybrids, meanwhile, helped Toyota cut its global warming pollution fleetwide because the company produced them in large numbers. Honda and Ford, which produced fewer hybrids, did not see the same improvement.
Chart:
Toyota is nipping at Honda's bumper. Toyota is the only major automaker to consistently improve global warming performance since 2001, thanks to hybrids and better conventional technology.
More:
Toyota Green in many areas
Toyota's Process Green philosophy extends to the ships it uses as much as to its buildings and cars. The New Century ships it launched in 2001 carry 1,000 more cars than normal vehicle ships, but use 17 percent less fuel and emit 26 percent less nitrogen oxide.
Toyota Green facility
Toyota's Green Giant The automaker brings the hybrid car mentality home with its California sales campus, one of the largest enviro-friendly construction projects ever completed in the United States.
So now, Do Tell me again Gary: WHERE is the "evidence" you have that Toyota is NOT green? I think the only "evidence" you have is a faulty opinion.
Do you have any REAL evidence?
Length: less than 158 in.
Width: 67 in.
Height: less than 53 in.
Weight: less than 2205 lbs
Engine: 2NZ-FE
Displacement: 1.5L
Power Output: 120HP
Price: 1.5 million Yen = 12,989 USD
Boy, if this is true, then Toyota is BACK!!!
Thank goodness NO! We have enough crap in our landfills now. How much is 15% of a million cars? The stuff they cannot recycle in a hybrid. They are building up for an environmental mess of epic proportions. Many in the know are aware and afraid to say anything against the darling of so many of the pseudo environmental groups. When I worked in a wrecking yard it was all recycled. That was 50 years ago. Cars were mostly steel and iron. Now they are a bunch of plastics that are useless after the car is junked. It does require more energy to recycle plastic than to produce new you know.
I do not consider a company that sells two big trucks for every hybrid green. It is a green smokescreen and it has a lot of people fooled.
You do know, I'm sure from your long days here, that the NiMH batteries are considered 'green technology'; c.f. Cobasys' website.
Also there is the well known fact that Toyota is buying back the batteries on vehicles taken out of service .. for the public relations benefit .. and for the precious metal content as well as.
You'll have to take potshots elsewhere. The Great Battery Debate thread died of old age and misconceptions some time last year.
Nah, you don't understand.
Toyota has an arrangement with Ford. See we send them all of that useless stuff, and they make the 2009 F-150 engines with it.
I sure hope they can show Toyota how to do it right.
DrFill
PS
The HSD system is about $11k according to one poor soul posting here on Edmund's.
The entire automotive culture is unavoidably massively wasteful and you are worried about the 15% NR Toyota, which is a rate better than most anything else?
Toyota has a relationship with Ford?
GM Trucks for longevity?
Failed NAV screens? All systems fail.
Environmental disaster coming? We are a hundred years into it and gaining speed.
Come down off the hill and ride the transit system.
The batteries are the only unusual part and they're accounted for already.
Again I think you're grasping to find something negative.
Not for you. You hate all forms of personal transportation that cannot be peddled.
Come down off the hill and ride the transit system.
I do occasionally ride the trolley to avoid parking downtown. No buses too smelly!!
No car, then or now, is really "environmentally sound," when you consider all that goes into its manufacture, use, and ultimate disposal/recycling. Probably the best form of ground transportation from an environmental standpoint, other than your own two feet, is the bicycle.
But you must be looking back on the past with rose-colored glasses. Speaking of glass, was IT recycled? Cars back then had plastic taillights just like today. Was the plastic recycled? Doubt it. I'm sure cars 50 years ago had more hazardous heavy metals like nickel, copper, chromium, mercury, and lead. What about the asbestos in the brake linings? And I doubt the rubber in tires was recycled. How about the seat stuffing and the carpeting, whatever they were made of (synthetic materials certainly by then)?
Throwaway cars? You can't be serious. Today's cars last a lot longer and go much farther. I'm not aware specifically of the Prius going belly-up at a rate faster than other cars. Evidence?
The pollution produced by those millions of Chevy trucks, that wouldn't know a LEV from a LSD, isn't factored into your argument, eh?
So they destroyed the environment, quickly and easily, and are why we NEED SULEV vehicles now, but the parts are reusable, so it's a push. Brilliant! :P
Didn't they also have the "side-saddle" gas tanks, that were excellent for a nice, explosive death? :confuse:
DrFill
Which brings me to the most important aspect of the cars. They were not totaled for a smashed fender as they are today. The throw-away cars of today may be safer because of crumple zones. They are not environmentally better being recycled in todays way of recycling. It does take more energy to recycle most plastics than to mfg new parts.
Looks like someone is seeing the smoke signals.
DrFill
Get the fact straight then come here and bark...
Sure, today's cars maybe throw away cars but I'll take my car which has airbags all around vs any 1950 cars in a 60-mph head-on collision. Wanna try?
============================================================
Interesting. When I was in automotive at that same time the cars were junked long before they reached 100,000 miles. Repairs were required far more frequently. Much of the car could not be recycled and became land fill. A lot of things seem better in the "good old days" until we really inspect it.
As for junk yard "recycling"; take a stroll through any "Pick a Part" wrecking yard and see what gets re-used/recycled - the value can be amazing and they support a whole underground economy. But, stuff still goes to the landfill no matter what or when, then or now.
As a boy 50 years ago I would walk through the "junk yards" and see hundreds of cars stacked three and four high waiting for the "meltdown". I was moved to tears to see my dream cars, 1940 Ford three window coupes with un-dented bodies, sitting there waiting for rescue and repair. I could have bought one for $50.00 but my front yard lemonade stand was only pulling in $2.00 a weekend net.
As for cars that are "totaled"; they are supporting another major multi billion dollar business niche that now has companies listed on the NYSE and is international in scope. They buy the cars through insurance auctions and resell the parts, or resell the entire cars as rebuildable.
There is a major company in Canada, listed on the Toronto exchange, whose primary business is battery component recycling, and is doing exceptionally well.
And the list goes far further.
Those "good old days" 50 years ago were just not.
Toyota has a comprehensive battery recycling program in place and has been recycling nickel-metal hydride batteries since the RAV4 Electric Vehicle was introduced in 1998. Every part of the battery, from the precious metals to the plastic, plates, steel case and the wiring, is recycled. To ensure that batteries come back to Toyota, each battery has a phone number on it to call for recycling information and dealers are paid a $200 "bounty" for each battery.
Hybrids are designed with recycling in mind. They are more recyclable than most cars.
Gary says, "It is a green smokescreen and it has a lot of people fooled."
How many more facts do you need to see to realize that is an incorrect statement?
The reborn of the AE86
Article is in Chinese though.
Best Car Scoop - A few weeks ago on September 3rd, Daily Car Newspaper (Japan) reported on an interview with Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe and his announcement of a joint Toyota-Subaru ‘Entry Level Sports Car’ which is underway and in it’s initial development phase, with a test mule spotted on a test course at Toyota’s headquarters in Toyota City.
The test mule is actually still very early in it’s development and in its experimental stage being based on a shortened Subaru Legacy chassis and running a SOHC 2.0L flat-four engine. Best Car isn’t aware of any wheelbase measurements at this time, but going by reports the test mule chassis is around 200mm shorter than it’s Legacy donor platform. The Legacy underpinnings are for experimental purposes only as the new Toyota Lightweight Sports Car will actually be based on a shortened Impreza 15S platform which is better suited to a smaller 1.5 - 2.0L (flat-four) engine and has ‘rear wheel drive friendly’ double wishbone rear suspension. The test mule is in very early stages with the car running the aforementioned 2.0L SOHC engine and a 4WD driveline (without front drive shafts) so it isn’t undergoing any serious performance driving tests at this point in time. Apparently Toyota has the ability to have this new lightweight sports car ready and on the market by the end of next year if only they were so inclined. Instead, a lot of effort is being put into getting the most performance while keeping the retail price below 2,000,000 yen.
Why a 1.5L engine?
Price seems to be the limiting factor regarding the type of engine, and therefore total weight, of the Toyota Lightweight Sports Car. Best Car has been told that if a larger 2.0L engine were to be used, the cost of the car would definitely rise above the 2,000,000 yen limit and would then not live up to its ‘Entry Level Sports Car’ namesake. Also the rear differential sourced from Subaru (from the Impreza 15S) has been cited as a weak link, it being limited to engines of 2.0L capacity or under for reliability concerns. The 1.5L engine - named ‘EL15′ - is a DOHC flat-four powerplant and is also noted for producing less emissions than it’s larger SOHC sibling which is another important criteria that Toyota is trying to address. The EL15 only puts out 110ps @ 6,400rpm and 14.7kg/m @ 3,200rpm so Toyota is doing its best to lighten the chassis and body as much as possible in order to give the car a reasonable amount of performance. Just how much weight can be shed? Toyota is aiming for 1100kg and no more this is another reason why the 2.0L engine was rejected as the larger engine would dictate a heavier chassis which in turn would exceed the 1100kg (total vehicle) weight limit by 100kg or more, even with considerable weight reduction. Only so much weight can be shed, and only so much can be done to keep the Lightweight Sports Car within the 2,000,000 yen limit so Toyota has a big job on its hands to address these issues and will certainly be an ongoing problem throughout the development cycle.
Source: Toyota/Subaru Lightweight Sports Car
Surprising since there is a 2.5l Impreza with 170hp and I've heard nothing of diff problems. Sounds odd that they can't just use the one from a US market Impreza or even a WRX...
I'd sell it as a Scion... :shades: