Japanese Car

After a 12-month joint development programme involving teams at Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI) in Japan and the Subaru World Rally Team (SWRT) in England, the latest evolution of the Subaru Impreza World Rally Car, the Impreza WRC2005, will make its competitive debut on 11 March at Rally Mexico.

The eagerly anticipated new model replaces the Impreza WRC2004, the car that propelled Petter Solberg to five WRC victories in the 2004 season and to another win on its final event, Rally Sweden, a fortnight ago.

With six World Rally Championship titles and 44 outright rally wins in the past 12 seasons, the Impreza has been the defining car in Subaru's elevation from road car manufacturer to legend in world rallying. From its inception in 1993, the Impreza has provided a sensory assault on motorsport fans across the globe, and the latest model, the result of more than ten years of rallying experience, will ensure the car remains at the top of the WRC throughout the current season.

Featuring a wider track, revised styling, composite body panels and a host of engine and suspension enhancements, the Impreza WRC2005 is the ultimate development of a rally car and represents a landmark in the collaboration between engineering and design teams in the UK and Japan.READ MORE..

Toyota's coolly futuristic Prius is instantly recognizable—one automotive writer likened it to a "set piece from a Kubrick film." Honda, on the other hand, has lately taken a different design tack with its hybrids. Its tiny two-seat Insight, introduced five years ago, was designed from the ground up as a unique vehicle, but since then Honda's hybrids have been visually indistinguishable from standard models. In 2002, the Civic Hybrid offered a "mild hybrid" system—the electric motor supplements the gasoline engine but cannot move the car by itself—and now the company has taken the same approach with the larger Honda Accord Hybrid.

Honda's Integrated Motor Assist System consists of a 12-kilowatt (16-horsepower) electric motor, just 68 millimeters wide, mounted between the engine and the transmission. It is powered by a 6-ampere, 144-volt nickel-metal hydride battery pack. The motor is mated to the same 179-kW (240-hp), 3-liter V6 engine that powers top-of-the-line Accords. The added power, instantly available from the electric motor on takeoff, cuts the hybrid's zero-to-60 mph (97 km/h) acceleration time to 7.5 seconds, from the 7.9 seconds of a regular V6 Accord, according to Honda.

The car's idle-stop feature shuts off the engine whenever the car stops. When the engine is off, Honda, like most manufacturers, maintains the functions of its accessories, such as the air-conditioning compressor, by switching them from mechanical to electric power.

While full hybrids such as the Toyota Prius and the Ford Escape use continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) to maximize mileage, the Accord Hybrid uses a conventional, electronically controlled five-speed automatic. The resulting driving experience is identical to that in a regular car, whereas a CVT user is sometimes nonplussed to find the engine speed rising or falling independently of road speed.READ MORE...

Toyota often tests new and advanced technologies in the Japanese market years before launching them elsewhere. For example, all-wheel drive using only an electric motor to power the rear wheels—soon to be offered on the company's Lexus RX 400h luxury hybrid sport-utility—was first seen on hybrid delivery vans sold only in Japan.

So it's worth looking at one home-market version of the Toyota Vitz, a small four-door hatchback related to the Echo sold in North America. Along with a continuously variable transmission (CVT), the CVT4 model features a 14.4-volt, 12-ampere-hour, four-cell lithium-ion battery pack—the first in a low-cost production vehicle. The battery is part of the car's idle-stop system, which shuts the engine off when the car stops, switching to those battery cells to power the lights, heater, air conditioner, and radio. The cells also restart the engine when the driver releases the brake. Unlike those in a full-hybrid system, the Vitz's batteries don't actually move the car.

The batteries are charged by the engine's alternator as well as through regenerative braking. A motor-driven hydraulic pump keeps pressure on the pulley of the CVT to ensure the car can move away from stops without pause.

The small Vitz batteries store about 180 watthours, equivalent to a couple of laptop batteries. But the resulting fuel economy in highly urban Japanese driving cycles is impressive: 3.92 L/100 km (60 mpg), the highest in Japan for vehicles other than hybrids or microcars.

The Vitz is not the first Japanese-market auto ever to use lithium-ion batteries. The Nissan Almera Tino Hybrid was powered by a 1.8-liter, 74-kilowatt (99 horsepower) four-cylinder engine, combined with a three-phase 20-kW electric motor driving a CVT. Its 345-V, 25-kW lithium-ion battery pack lets the electric motor power the vehicle from a stop and at low speeds and also lets it supplement the engine under higher load conditions. Nissan built only 100 Tino Hybrids, however.

Lithium-ion batteries do have some drawbacks. Most use metal-oxide cathodes that are highly flammable when heated. Also, calendar life, as opposed to just accumulated charge-discharge cycles, is a concern for lithium-ion batteries. Still, energy densities of 110 to 130 Wh per kilogram, as compared with, typically, 60 to 70 Wh/kg for nickel-metal hydride, make them extremely attractive to automakers. Last June, Japan's Hitachi, Hitachi Maxell, and Shin-Kobe Electric Machinery Co. announced they had formed a joint venture to make rechargeable lithium-ion batteries specifically for hybrid cars..READ MORE...

Nissan North America Inc. is ready to run a big race.

Today, Feb. 14, Nissan plans to launch its “Race to a Million” sales event. It’s the last push in the automaker’s quest to sell 1 million vehicles in the United States during its 2004 fiscal year, which ends March 31.

The event includes a broadcast, print and Internet advertising blitz. The ad campaign was scheduled to begin in March, but Nissan moved it up to February to accommodate the sales effort.

As of Jan. 31, Nissan and Infiniti divisions sold 825,078 vehicles during the first 10 months of the company’s fiscal year.

“For the first time, we’re looking at 1 million sales volume in the U.S.,” Nissan Motor Co. CEO Carlos Ghosn said at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention last month.

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General Motors and Isuzu Motors Ltd. will boost production of diesel engines at their joint venture in Moraine, Ohio, this year and next.

The 6.6-liter V-8 diesel, called the Duramax, is available in the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups. It will be sold in the Hummer H1 Alpha, a high-performance model, starting this spring. Hummer is looking at offering the Duramax in the H2 and H3, a Hummer spokesman said.

Engine production at the joint venture, DMAX Ltd., is scheduled to reach 195,000 this year and to rise above 200,000 in 2006, said an Isuzu executive. That's up from about 172,000 in 2004.

To expand production, DMAX is spending $50 million on new equipment.

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Nissan Motor Co., Japan's second-largest automaker, said third-quarter net income rose 6.9 percent on demand for new models including a revamped Pathfinder SUV in the United States and the Fuga luxury sedan in Japan.

Profit rose to 134.2 billion yen ($1.27 billion) in the three months ended Dec. 31 from 125.6 billion yen a year earlier, the Tokyo-based company said. Sales climbed 15 percent to 2.09 trillion yen. Nissan maintained its forecast for a fifth consecutive year of record earnings.

A wider range of light trucks, produced in a factory opened in Mississippi in 2003, is helping Nissan win U.S. market share from Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. Nissan also sustained profit growth by negotiating lower costs from suppliers and expanding U.S. production to limit the impact of a stronger yen.

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The Nessie represents an in-depth analysis into the issue of the day, the SUV.

For the centennial Geneva Motor Show, Italdesign Giugiaro, in collaboration with Mitsubishi and the Linde Group, pushed creative-thinking towards intermeshing, yet again, technology and style, giving tangible form to a heart-pounding yet clean sports utility vehicle that offers advanced solutions to the environment-friendly dilemma.

Research into styling was focused unassailably around all-new product sculptural modeling, with a keen eye steered towards bodyside and volume plasticity giving breath of life to a vehicle architecture never seen before, the 2.5V SUV coupé.

A 2.5V SUV coupé
Nowadays, the SUV line-up in all its declinations has secured a bold market niche. Forging an agreement with a leader brand such as Mitsubishi was the trigger for priming this all-new research.

Having attained an operating chassis, drawn from the string of experience gained winning tough and rugged world rallies like the Paris Dakar, starting to take shape within Italdesign Giugiaro was a rational route towards technical design with a view to installing a powerful yet pleasurable V8 engine along with, as a consequence, a hydrogen fuel system, applied in collaboration with the Linde Group, a clean power source that renders this vehicle absolutely “clean”, all of which operated and managed by an automatic gear box and a sophisticated electronically controlled wheeldrive.

The Nessie respects environmental concerns. As such, the Nessie provides the answer to questions, even those more skeptic, about the impact that SUVs may have on the environment, especially town and built-up areas, and perhaps removes the ultimate obstacle barring the way to full acceptance of this new type of vehicle as consolidated product line-up reality.

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Toyota Motor Corp. is sweeping out six senior executives.

The abrupt changing of the guard has two related objectives.

>>> Groom Akio Toyoda, grandson of the company's founder, to become president, along with a supporting cast that will run the company for the next 10 to 15 years.

>>> Shake up a company whose success carries the risk of complacency. Purchasing expert Katsuaki Watanabe, 63, will lead the new regime. Now an executive vice president, he will become Toyota's next president, succeeding Fujio Cho, 68.

Analysts expect Watanabe to be Toyota's president for between three and five years. "He will serve until the right time to pass the leadership to Akio" Toyoda, says Takaki Nakanishi, auto analyst at UBS Securities Japan Ltd.

Akio is the grandson of Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda and son of honorary chairman Shoichiro Toyoda. The Toyoda family holds less than 2 percent of Toyota's stock but still wields considerable influence.

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With styling that is dynamic and substantial, the Swift closely follows the look of the Suzuki Concept-S car first shown at the Paris Motor Show in 2002 and then the Concept-S2.

The S2 was unveiled at the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show and, while it was an open-top sports car, it was dimensionally similar to the production Swift now unveiled in New Zealand.

Yet Swift is much more than a pretty face. It is a quantum leap in design, flair and interior quality, and a Japanese car developed in Europe for today's world markets.

Code-named YN2, the 2005 Swift is already earning a reputation as a class-leading small car for its strong performance and endearing handling and trim road-holding.

With the widest overall wheel tracks in the class – 1,470mm at the front and 1,480mm rear – the Swift has a wide stance and a friendly character with distinctive looks that are all too rare today.

The wraparound glasshouse and black finish on the A- and B-pillars add to the integration of the body style, while body-colour, pullout door handles add a further touch of class. Vertically stacked headlamps incorporate twin indicator units and make a strong statement.

Wheel arches are boldly flared and the distinctive waistline rises to the rear where it is met by a superbly shaped tail, indicator and brake light clusters. The deep tailgate meets a large rear bumper that forms a solid visual base for the lower part of the body.

At the top of the tailgate, the roof's trailing edge is shaped like a spoiler, helping to produce a drag coefficient of 0.32.

Special mounting rigidity allows the power assisted rack and pinion steering to impart good feel while high body rigidity enables the suspension and steering systems to work to their full potential. The Swift's 15-inch diameter wheels are fitted with 185/60R series tyres.

MacPherson strut and coil spring suspension is used up front. Suspension lower arms, steering, gearbox and rear engine mountings are attached to a suspension frame rather than to the body, while the lower arms are a rigid new L-shaped design.
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apanese vehicles dominate the government's annual list of vehicles with the best fuel economy, but Ford Motor Co. can claim the most fuel efficient pickup and sport utility vehicle.

The manual version of the hybrid Honda Insight tops the list of 2005 vehicles with 61 miles per gallon in the city and 66 mpg on the highway, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy said Thursday. Eight of the top 10 cars are made by Honda and Toyota; the other two are Volkswagens.

The Big Three U.S. makers fared well in some individual categories. The new Ford Escape hybrid is the most fuel efficient SUV, with 31 mpg on the highway, and the Ford Ranger is the most fuel efficient pickup with 29 mpg on the highway. Chevrolet makes the most fuel-efficient large sedan, the Malibu Maxx, as well as the most fuel efficient cargo and passenger vans.

The automatic version of the Dodge Ram pickup, which gets 12 mpg on the highway, was least fuel efficient vehicle in this year's survey. Luxury cars, including models from Lamborghini, Ferrari and Bentley, rounded out the list of the 10 least fuel-efficient vehicles

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Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan recently announced it will re-organize its current sales channels and add a Lexus channel with 150 showrooms in mid-2005. Lexus vehicles are currently sold in more than 35 countries, but in Japan, the same vehicles have always been offered as Toyota models through various Toyota channels. This re-organization will centralize all the Lexus products and create a Lexus brand identity in Japan.

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Toyota unveiled the all-new FJ Cruiser sport utility vehicle (SUV) at a press conference today at the 2005 Chicago Auto Show. The overwhelmingly positive response to the FJ Cruiser concept, developed two years ago, prompted Toyota to launch a production version of the SUV. The all-new production model retains much of the design details of the original concept.

The FJ Cruiser effectively fills a gap in the Toyota lineup which was once our core heritage - capable, affordable and durable vehicles that are youthful, fun-to-drive, aggressive and tough," said Don Esmond, senior vice president and general manager, Toyota Division. "The FJ Cruiser will deliver true off-road ruggedness, image and performance at a very low price, making it highly accessible for a large volume of young buyers."

The final production design of the FJ Cruiser was a joint project by Toyota Motor Corporation and Calty Design Research, which developed the original concept vehicle shown at the North American International Auto Show in 2003. Chiseled from nearly a half-century tradition of tough off-road performance provided by the legendary FJ 40, the original 4Runner, and 4x4 compact pickups, the FJ Cruiser was developed as a basic, capable and affordable off-roader aimed specifically at young buyers with active outdoor lifestyles.

The FJ Cruiser takes on an authentic functional form, yet adopts several styling cues from the original FJ 40. Some of these cues are notable on the front end by its wide grille with "Toyota" logo badging, round headlights, and offset combination lamps. Additional inspiration can be found through its upright windshield and white cap roof. Traits are also noticeable in the rear with wrapping rear corner windows. The modern shape of the FJ Cruiser is woven into a compact package set on a wide track, producing enhanced stability and a powerful stance.

Utility features include a two-part rear hatch with flip-up glass, black overfenders with mudguards, and silver painted bumper extenders, mirrors, door handles and skid plate. Easy rear passenger entry into the two-door SUV is achieved with rear access doors.

Power is supplied by a 4.0-liter V6 engine, generating 245 horsepower and 282 lb-ft. of torque. The engine is paired with a five-speed automatic transmission on both 4x2 and 4x4 configurations and an available six-speed manual on 4x4 models.

The five-passenger FJ Cruiser rides on a modified 4Runner platform and features 17-inch steel wheels and four-wheel disc brakes. Just like all of the SUV’s in Toyota's line-up, the FJ Cruiser will be equipped with the Star Safety System which includes Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) and traction control (TRAC), an anti-lock brake system (ABS) with electronic brake-force distribution (EBD) and brake assist as standard. All 4x2 models will come with a standard automatic limited slip differential (ALSD).

The tough and straightforward theme of the FJ Cruiser is extended to the interior with a cabin designed specifically for basic functionality and flexible utility. The instrument panel features an exterior color trim, adding to its sophisticated, handcrafted appearance. The faceplate with round inset instrumentation communicates a mechanical appearance. The steering wheel and center-mounted shifter, and attached-look door panels feature tool-like simplicity. The rear seats fold flat, creating ample cargo space and maximum usability.

The interior will be equipped with an array of standard convenience features including air conditioning, AM/FM CD audio with six speakers, tilt steering wheel, four cupholders, passenger seat back pocket, and an upper dash-mounted map/glove box.

Additional optional equipment includes 17-inch aluminum alloy wheels, rear differential lock, electronic four-wheel traction control (on 4WD models only), running boards, rear sonar backup assist, front seat-mounted side airbags and front- and rear-side curtain airbags, daytime running lights, power outside mirror with image lights, cruise control, AM/FM CD audio with a six-disc changer, equalizer and eight speakers, leather-wrapped steering wheel with audio controls, multi-information display, exterior color door insert panels, privacy glass, and rear wiper.

"Toyota is responding to the needs of a new generation of buyers with a modern interpretation of a Toyota classic, combining Toyota heritage with the safety and refinement requirements of today’s market," said Esmond.

The Toyota FJ Cruiser will reach Toyota dealerships in early 2006.

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Canada is the No. 3 producer of Honda passenger cars worldwide, and the No. 4 buyer. No wonder its president is happy...

Hiroshi Kobayashi is a car nut. When he was at university in Japan, he wanted to buy a small car, an S800 sports car. His father told him he wasn't going to buy it for him.

"So, I got a job delivering milk to pay for it."

If you don't recognize the car model, don't be surprised. It was a micro sports car built in the 1960s, equipped with a 791-cubic-centimetre engine that could move the car up to 160 kilometres an hour. It looked like a Triumph Spitfire but was made by Honda, which makes the story worth telling since Kobayashi now runs Honda Canada.

"I love cars," says Kobayashi, who talks about the four-barrel carburetor that used to coax 70 horsepower out of the S800's tiny engine. Now, he drives an Acura RL, the 300 horsepower, top-of-the-line car in the Honda stable. He may have only been in Canada since April, but his RL has four snow tires - even with all-wheel drive.
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Toyota Motor Corp., whose fuel-efficient Prius compact was the world's first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle when it went on sale in Japan in 1997, is about to launch the first luxury hybrid: the Lexus RX 400h sport utility vehicle.

Waiting lists, already common with the Prius, are piling up for the SUV, due in showrooms by mid-April. Toyota dealers nationally have taken orders for 11,900 of the 24,000 being allotted for sale in the United States this year.

Tustin Lexus, one of the country's largest Lexus dealers, has taken "more advance orders for the RX 400h than for any other vehicle since Lexus began sales in 1989," said sales manager Darrick Usiadek. About 20% of his orders are from people who had never owned a Lexus, he said — a trend Toyota expects to hold up nationwide. READ MORE..

Profits at Japanese carmaker Toyota are rising despite pressure from a rising yen and more expensive raw materials.

The firm reported a net profit in the three months to December of 296.5bn yen ($2.85bn; £1.51bn), up 3.5% from 2003.

Toyota, the world's number two carmaker by sales, said revenue rose 5.9% with gains in market share worldwide.

Its fortunes contrast with those of US giants Ford and GM, whose profits are now dependent on their financing arms rather than the car sales themselves.

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