Toyota to build Prius in Mississippi

Ever since GM announced that they were going to close plants that made big SUV’s and restructure the organization to better meet today’s slumping economy others seem to be following suit such as Toyota. Two of Toyota’s gas guzzlers, the Tundra and Sequoia will not be produced for 3 months. That does not mean Toyota will stop making the Tundra or Sequoia. It means production will be at idle for 3 months while Toyota utilizes the Tundra and Sequoia plant to make more Toyota Prius’s. The Prius remains to be the hottest selling and most efficient hybrid that you can buy at a local dealership.

Below is the excerpt from Automotive News further explaining this new strategy that Toyota will attempt. Sounds good? You bet your ass it sounds good! I was put on a year long waiting list to buy a Toyota Prius for my wife. I don’t want to wait that long just like thousands of other consumers. Do you think this is a good move by Toyota?

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Technology breakthrough will bring Series Hybrids to mass market

 

Hybrid and pure Electric Vehicles (EVs) continue to be on the fringe of the mass market due to costs and range, and these disadvantages are not going away, even with $4 gas. The recent introduction of a new type of electric motor/drive from the aerospace industry is posed to move Series Hybrids into the mass market category. This breakthrough provides more power, better stamina, and increases simplicity which drives down costs.

Until now, there have only been two options for the electric motor for Hybrids, either a Permanent Magnet Motor (used in Toyota and Honda’s drive trains) or a 3-Phase AC Induction Motor (used by GM and Tesla).

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The Car of the Future

 

I could not help but share this article with everyone. After opening up my mind and realizing this is actually where we are headed. Welcome to smaller car world!

The linked article that I have chosen for today comes from Newsweek where they talk about the car of the future. Surprisingly we will not see many hydrogen powered cars on the road in the near future. Instead, we will all be downsizing utilizing new hybrid technologies such as found in the current Toyota Prius and the upcoming Chevy Volt. The Chevy Volt is a new and improved idea of the hybrid car where it does run just off of electricity but it has a very small engine that burns gas to charge the battery that powers the electric motor. Other developments will include simply making “better” hybrid vehicles and more economical “smaller” cars and cross-over SUV’s (CUV’s).

I encourage you to read the linked article below at Newsweek.com.

Newsweek Article: “The Car of the Future”

BMW GINA Light Visionary Model The Premiere – A Car With Skin

Talking about interesting and a big “question raiser”… why? To save gas, to look “cool” maybe to be just plain ol different. Sure, I dig this, it is pretty freakin neat if you ask me. BMW is known to do a few bold things and have several “things” in development such as a hydrogen powered 7-series, hybrids and other new innovative cars such as the GINA shown here. In the video below, Chris pretty much explains the whole concept idea and what is to come. Will we see something like this on the road one day soon? Probably not in our life-time unless we get rid of all knives and thieves… you thought slashing tires was bad enough… try slashing the skin of your car. No worries, you can just slip on a new skin just like you with iPods and iPhones right? BMW, the fabric of our lives… sure!

“With the development of the BMW GINA Light Visionary Model the BMW Group presents trendsetting solutions. Chris Bangle gives us a first impression of the ideas behind the process of sculpturing an experimental study. This is the story behind this innovation!”

Is Smart Really The Smart Choice When It Comes To Safety?

Smart has been scrutinized and questioned about it’s over-all safety when you consider the small size of the Smart Fortwo vehicle. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has released the official data on the Smart Fortwo vehicle crash tests results. The tests have actually raised some eyebrows in a good way if that is possible. The little car scored a rating of “good” in both frontal and side impact tests conducted by the IIHS. In the rear impact tests the Smart Fortwo scored an “acceptable”.

After the tests it seems apparent that the developers at Smart are actually “Smart” when it comes to making a safe Smart car. This car may be safer than some of those several ton SUV’s on the road today. Although you would not want the Smart car to “meet” a 4 ton SUV at any speed, that would not be so pretty and “Smart”.

 

Smart Fortwo Crash Test Video:

My Ford Is Just As Good As Your Toyota

Many of you have seen the recent Ford commercials where they boast that Ford’s quality is just as good as Toyotas. Well, I have two questions. Is Fords quality just as good as Toyotas and is Toyota a benchmark setter in the world of “quality” of an automobile? You cannot deny the fact that Toyota has set a high mark for quality especially with their Lexus brand which comes in near the top of the list of J.D. Power Associates Initial Quality Survey each year. So who really said that Ford was on par with Toyota’s quality? It was actually a 3rd party that is not associated with J.D. Power & Associates that performed a so-called initial quality survey.

Toyota is not too happy with the claims that are plastered all over homes of America in one of Ford’s newest commercials. Even though Toyota has a justified right to defend their claim but as other automakers focus in and catch up to Toyota in the Initial Quality Survey Toyota does not feel this survey should be labeled as significant.

So is Ford REALLY on par with Toyota. We don’t want to bash either of the automakers, they both have excellent vehicles in all competitive automotive markets. We think only time will tell if Ford is all that and a bag of chips. Toyota has an excellent history when it comes to quality and it may take some time for others to prove that type of status. Will your Ford F-150 last longer than Jim’s Toyota Tundra? You may have to wait this one out.

Commercial Clip

Chasing the Japanese: 2009 Dodge Challenger is Chasing the Nissan GT-R with new tech?

Okay, so you may be confused by the title of this blog post. Don’t worry, I will explain.

It seems that Dodge has started to implement a few enhancements if you will, on the new 2009 Dodge Challenger that are similar to the Nissan GT-R’s plethora of digital car behavior-read-outs. Dodge did not have the developers of Gran Turismo 5 involved in the development of the boy-toys that are now available for the 2009 Dodge Challenger.

Many car enthusiasts know about the new Nissan GT-R and what the center console LCD screen displays. Dodge has gone and used this idea and put it on the lower portion of the Challengers gauges. Whoa, looks rather cheesy if you ask me. You be the judge… we have included a video clip from youtube where Dodge is starting to promote the new features on the 2009 Dodge Challenger which Dodge calls it the “stat-keeping Performance Pages Display”.

INTERESTING HUH?

BMW ConnectedDrive: Internet Access On New BMW’s – 2008 Geneva Auto Show

BMW should be the first car maker in the world to pair newer vehicles with full internet access all fully integrated just like the run-of-the-mill navigation system is done. As you may know this has been done before in the garages of teens and car enthusiasts alike by used of cell technology. BMW will use the slower EDGE network which also connects the Apple iPhone to the net wherever the service is available. We believe the choice for the EDGE network over the faster G3 (right now) would be the common availability of the EDGE network over any others.

We all remember when BMW’s iDrive came out and how “weird” we thought that was. Well, we will probably welcome the integrated internet more so than the iDrive because we like to grip clickers in one hand and have the ultimate control over things. Of course we will not want to do this while driving. You thought people were mad enough because you drove a BMW, they will be furious when you cut them off because your surfing the net. Well, will they be? Read on….

The new BMW ConnectedDrive system will incorporate the “safety” feature of NO INTERNET if the car is in motion. So all of you steadily worrying about the fool in the new 760iL crashing into you because he was transferring money from his Swiss bank account… fret not. Now we cannot speak for the children in the back seat of the BMW… they will be able to have free run of the internet while the car is parked or in motion. So no more glancing at the back of a BMW trying to figure out which DVD they are watching… it will be more like what website are they surfing once they roll out the BMW ConnectedDrive on new BMWs.

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