toyota

Toyota Prius Prime Gets The Plug-in Hybrid Right, Now About That Design

This entry was posted in Carmakers electric Hybrid reviews technology Toyota and tagged car review car reviews cars hybrid phev plug-in hybrid review reviews toyota on by (updated 2585 days ago)

2017 Toyota Prius Prime

Ok, let’s immediately deal with the elephant in the room. The Toyota Prius Prime is not an attractive vehicle. In fact, to my eyes, it’s quite homely. Now that we have that out of the way, I’ll leave the aesthetic judgements to your own tastes and move on to how Toyota’s sophomore effort at a plug-in version of its icon works. While the first-generation Prius PHV was a bit of a swing and a miss, the functionality this time is in most respects a home run.

(more…)

2016 Toyota Prius Three – Still The Mileage Champ

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars Hybrid reviews Toyota and tagged 2016 toyota prius car review car reviews cars hybrid toyota on by (updated 3055 days ago)

2016 Toyota Prius - 1 of 23

It’s not often that a single automotive nameplate becomes virtually synonymous with a powertrain technology. Yet over the course of almost two decades, that’s exactly what has happened with the Toyota Prius. When you think hybrid electric, Prius is likely the first and probably only name that comes to mind. Late 2015 brought us an all-new fourth-generation Prius with some of the most substantial changes to date and I finally got an opportunity to drive it recently.

(more…)

2016 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-road – And Off-road is Where it Belongs

This entry was posted in Carmakers reviews Toyota Trucks and tagged car review car reviews review toyota toyota tacome trd on by (updated 3091 days ago)
2016 Toyota Tacoma TRD

2016 Toyota Tacoma TRD

The idea of the off-road vehicle is by no means new, but it used to be that people that wanted to go bouncing around in sand dunes, crawling through canyons or racing through the desert would basically have to build their own. Aside from the Jeep Wrangler and its predecessors, almost no factory-built truck had real serious off-road capability. However, in the past decade we’ve seen automakers go from building hot-rod trucks like the Chevy Syclone, Ford F-150 Lightning and Dodge Ram SRT-10 to more serious off-roaders like the F-150 SVT Raptor and this Toyota Tacoma TRD Off-Road.

(more…)

2016 Toyota Corolla S Plus 6MT – Think Scion Instead

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars reviews scion Toyota and tagged 2016 toyota corolla s car review car reviews compact corolla reviews toyota on by (updated 3148 days ago)

2016 Toyota Corolla S - 4 of 21Compared to the rest of the world, the American automotive market is an anomaly in ways. No where else will you find fullsize pickup trucks selling in such enormous numbers with the big trucks from Ford, GM and Fiat Chrysler being the perennial best-sellers for years on end. Move beyond our borders however, and so-called C-segment or compact cars dominate the market. For nearly five decades one of the continuous top-sellers in that space has been the Toyota Corolla in all its different flavors. While Corolla buyers elsewhere get to choose from a variety of body styles, Americans are limited to a four-door sedan unless they opt for the related Scion iM hatchback.

(more…)

2016 Toyota Tundra Limited Double-Cab 4×4 – Much Improved, But Is It Good Enough to Compete?

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars reviews Toyota Trucks and tagged 2016 toyota tundra car review car reviews pickup reviews toyota tundra on by (updated 3148 days ago)

2016 Toyota Tundra - 1 of 24

The American light vehicle market is a unique beast in the world. Nowhere else on the planet will you find so many full-size pickup trucks in use and representing such a large proportion of total vehicle sales. Through October, 2015, Americans bought 1.78 million fullsize trucks, 12.3 percent of the year-to-date total. It’s also the only market segment where the three Detroit based automakers have remained utterly dominant despite challenges from Japan. As the world’s largest automaker, Toyota looked at the profit margins that Ford, GM and Chrysler were pulling in on those trucks and it’s been trying to capture a piece of that pie for more than two decades with surprisingly limited success. In 2013, Toyota gave the Tundra pickup a major makeover and it’s better than ever – but is it good enough?

(more…)

The 2016 Toyota Prius is Official!

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars Hybrid News Toyota and tagged 2016 toyota prius hybrid hybrid electric prius toyota on by (updated 3361 days ago)

2016_Toyota_Prius_031_1E9B69CE8E4156EB4B206135DFD860F936C2F099Late last night in Las Vegas, Toyota revealed the new fourth-generation of the world’s best selling hybrid, the Prius. Eighteen years after the debut of the original, the Prius has become an automotive icon with a distinctive look that has become synonymous with battery-assisted cars. Images of the of the new Prius have been leaking out for weeks and by time Toyota revealed the car it was no longer a surprise. All that was really left to reveal were the technical details, but unfortunately those have been kept to a bare minimum other than the news that it will offer a 10 percent boost in fuel efficiency.

(more…)

Toyota Launches $50M Artificial Intelligence Collaboration with MIT and Stanford

This entry was posted in Carmakers technology Toyota and tagged ai artificial intelligence collaborative safety research center csrc gill pratt MIT stanford toyota on by (updated 3366 days ago)
Dr Gill Pratt - Executive Technical Advisor, Toyota

Dr Gill Pratt – Executive Technical Advisor, Toyota

At a press conference in Palo Alto, California today, Toyota announced a new collaborative research program that will focus on development of artificial intelligence and automation control systems. Under the auspices of Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC), the $50 million development program will pull in researchers from Toyota, Stanford University and MIT to help develop the systems that will be required to power increasingly autonomous cars. The effort will be led by Dr. Gill Pratt who is joining Toyota as an executive technical advisor. Pratt previously served as the program manager for the DARPA robotics challenge which brought the world the “big dog” robot from Boston Dynamics.

(more…)

2016 Scion iM First Drive – The Only Corolla for Enthusiasts to Consider

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars reviews scion and tagged 2016 2016 scion iM car review car reviews first drive scion toyota on by (updated 3148 days ago)

2016 Scion iM - 4 of 11

 

The second of two new cars coming from Toyota’s entry-level Scion division this fall is the iM, a compact five-door hatchback that has the likes of the Ford Focus and Volkswagen Golf in its sights. For those that pay attention to Toyota’s European lineup, the iM will be familiar since it’s essentially a rebadged Auris. The iM effectively replaces Scion’s now defunct cube car the xB in the lineup, but the question is can it move the needle on the segment?

(more…)

2016 Scion iA First Drive – Just Walk Up From Behind and Get In

This entry was posted in cars reviews scion and tagged 2016 scion iA car review car reviews mazda scion toyota on by (updated 3148 days ago)

2016 Scion iA - 4 of 23

A dozen years after Toyota launched the Scion brand as a way to attract younger customers into the fold, the world’s largest automaker is hitting the reboot switch. After some initial success with the first-generation xA and xB, the second-generation xB and the xD that replaced the xA never really caught fire with consumers. While the tC coupe and the FR-S have done reasonably well for their segments, Scion is about two launch two new bread and butter models, the C-segment iM and the B-segment iA which I’ll discuss here.

(more…)

2015 Toyota Camry XSE – It’s Not So Beige Anymore

This entry was posted in Carmakers cars reviews Toyota and tagged 2015 camry car car review car reviews review reviews toyota on by (updated 3148 days ago)

2015 toyota camry xse 01

Over the years certain brands of cars have become inexorably associated with colors. Regardless of what is sprayed on in the paint shop, a Ferrari is always a deep scarlet red at heart. Anything built on the north side of the English Channel should be a dark green. High performance cars wearing a three-pointed star or four rings are silver arrows. The Toyota Camry? Beige through and through.

Beige is not an offensive hue. Quite the opposite in fact, it may well be the best camouflage color in the known universe. Instead of garish swirlies that are guaranteed to attract attention, automakers should just paint all their prototypes beige and spy photographers would never even see them.

(more…)