| Mar 04 | Small is beautiful: Japan's hand-made electric cars (AFP) |
 While auto manufacturing giants spend millions to develop environmentally-friendly electric cars, one Japanese company has taken a more low-key approach, crafting hand-made "green" cars.
Takeoka Jidosha Kogei may be the antithesis of the world's Hondas and Nissans. The family-run business makes its cars from scratch in a garage workshop in the snowy foothills in the northwest of the country.
There are no industrial robots or assembly lines in sight. Instead just a dozen mechanics crafting each model by hand, right up to the finishing touch of adding a set of beady headlights to their "Milieu" range.
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| Feb 26 | Honda launches world's first sporty hybrid car (Japan Times) |
 Honda Motor Co. on Thursday rolled out the CR-Z, the world's first hybrid sports car. The car, which will hit domestic showrooms Friday ahead of its global launch, comes with an electric motor equivalent to 1.5 liters and a 2.0-liter gasoline engine for acceleration. Its fuel efficiency is rated at 25 km per liter, compared with about 12 for similar gas-powered Honda models.
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| Feb 18 | Here comes the electric Nissan Leaf (CNN) |
 Carlos Ghosn -- in shirtsleeves -- walks briskly into a conference room on the 21st floor of Nissan's global headquarters in Yokohama, Japan. Awaiting his arrival are 15 executives in two ranks of chairs. Subject of the meeting: how to spread the news about Ghosn's pet electric-car project.
His communications staff wants a traditional publicity campaign to build excitement, but Ghosn (rhymes with "phone") has other ideas. He believes that Nissan has a headstart over the rest of the industry -- and he doesn't want to tip his hand.
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| Feb 17 | MMC plans ¥800,000 fuel-stingy compact (Japan Times) |
| Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is considering setting the price of its new fuel-efficient compact car at around ¥800,000, well under the roughly ¥1 million for the lowest-priced cars now available on the market, sources said. The automaker is planning to build the car, which is set for release next year, at low-cost plants in Thailand and China and to supply it to carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen, which is looking to forge capital ties with Mitsubishi Motors, for sale under the French automaker's nameplate, the sources said. |
| Feb 02 | Japan leads the race for a hydrogen fuel-cell car (csmonitor.com) |
 It may still sound like science fiction to some. But Japan is taking a lead in making zero-emissions hydrogen-fueled cars a reality.
It's part of the country's aspiration to cut its carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050; nearly a quarter of those emissions come from transportation. And it's a more urgent task in a country that imports all of its oil.
Japan leads Asia in early hydrogen-car infrastructure and is a world-beater in emerging fuel cell technologies.
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| Jan 30 | Why are Toyota gas pedals sticking? It's complicated (Japan Times) |
| For a century, the basic idea behind pressing the accelerator on a car has been pretty straightforward. What's going wrong with some Toyotas isn't simple. Experts say the sudden acceleration problem that has put the brakes on Toyota sales and production is likely not a single problem but an alignment of complicated interconnected conditions. |
| Jan 26 | Revolutionary electric vehicle to hit the road (Yomiuri) |
 A start-up company has begun developing an electric car that has motors in each of its wheels, a breakthrough that could enable the car to travel 300 kilometers per charge, up to twice as far as some other electric vehicles using the same batteries.
The vehicle with the unique energy-saving "in-wheel motor" technology could go into mass-production in 2013.
According to Sim-Drive, the company established by Keio University Prof. Hiroshi Shimizu and others, 34 companies and organizations--including Mitsubishi Motors Corp., Isuzu Motors Ltd., a battery maker and local governments--have invested 680 million yen in the project.
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| Jan 24 | 2010 Subaru Forester: A study in reliability (Washington Post) |
 Sometimes you just want reliability -- a simple vehicle that does what it does well and does it repeatedly. You want the fossil-fueled version of the Timex. The watch is seldom fancy or pretty. It can be bought for a reasonable price at the local drugstore. But it will last as long as many more expensive timepieces, and it will keep time as well, often better, than many of them. The Timex watch exemplifies its marketing slogan: It "keeps on ticking."
The Subaru Forester is the Timex of the automobile industry. First manufactured in Japan in 1997 and brought to the United States a year later, it has grown in popularity in regions such as this, places where winter can be truly wintry and where foothills actually lead to mountains.
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| Jan 22 | Mazda to unveil Mazda5 at 2010 Geneva Motor Show (automotive-business-review.com) |
 Mazda Motor is going to unveil its new Mazda5 (known as Mazda Premacy in Japan) at 2010 Geneva Motor Show on March 2 and 3, 2010. The new Mazda5 emits approximately 15% less CO2 than the current model due to it's i-stop idling stop system, a direct injection gasoline engine and other technologies. The new Mazda5 will be the first Mazda production model to fully adopt the company's Nagare (meaning 'flow' in Japanese) design language.
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| Jan 08 | Toyota's Prius top-selling car in Japan last year (AP) |
 The Toyota Prius was the top-selling car in Japan last year - the first time a gas-electric hybrid has clinched that spot.
The Japan Automobile Dealers Association said Friday that Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius was No. 1 in its ranking of sales by vehicle models - with 208,876 Prius cars sold in 2009, nearly three times the numbers sold the previous year.
The big success of the Prius in the home market for Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, highlights the growing consumer acceptance of green vehicles.
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| Jan 08 | Subaru launches special edition Impreza R205 in Japan (automobilemag.com) |
 Good news for those living in Japan: if you managed let either of the last two special-edition Subaru Impreza WRX STI models slip through your fingers, there's another version headed your way: the Impreza R205.
Although the "R" in "R205" reportedly stands for "Road Sport," it may as well stand for "racetrack." R205 models receive several suspension upgrades, all of which were tested by STI engineers during the 2009 Nurburgring 24-hour race. R205 models receive inverted strut and coil springs for the front suspension, along with revised dampers and coil springs out back. The front suspension also receives a strut tower bar, a lower arm brace, and a stabilizer bar.
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| Jan 06 | Japan brings 'car wars' to India (expressbuzz.com) |
 Global automakers lined up their global launches at the 10th Auto Expo here to vie for their share of Indian auto market and break the hold of local players in one of the fastest growing markets in the world.
Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen and General Motors unveiled new compact car models. Honda Siel Cars India announced the world premiere of the New Honda Small Concept.
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| Jan 01 | Toyota tops record year for safety recalls (USA Today) |
 When it comes to vehicle trouble bad enough to require a recall, Toyota isn't the automaker that would normally come to mind. Except this year.
For the first time, Toyota led the U.S. auto industry in recalled vehicles -- the vast majority of them involving those accelerators that Toyota says are jamming under floor mats. The Japanese automaker put 4.3 million Toyota and Lexus models under recall last year.
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| Dec 30 | Mazda may replace RX-8 with a new 2-door RX-7 for 2012 (nitrobahn.com) |
 Its been rumoured that we can expect the resurrection of the Mazda RX-7 sometime in 2011. It is true that we've been hearing these stories telling us that we should expect the rotary engine powered sports car any day now and the car's still yet to reveal its smiling face, but this time, it looks like it is the real deal. Here we have reports from Japan indicating that the next RX-7 may be just around the corner. That is excellent news, isn't it? Maybe not so, for Mazda RX-8.
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| Dec 22 | Subaru's turbocharged sales secret (CNN) |
 Subaru, the car brand of choice for quirky, all-wheel-drive loving Northeasterners and trendy turbo freaks, is on something of a tear.
Considering Subaru's record breaking sales at a time when others are struggling to unload cars, the number four Japanese brand in America is doing downright great. Most of the credit goes to recent upgrades made to three of Subaru's five model lines. Those upgrades reflect a renewed focus on America.
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| Dec 15 | Toyota rolls out its plug-in Prius (Japan Times) |
 Toyota Motor Corp. unveiled on Monday the plug-in version of the latest Prius gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle with extended range when it runs on electricity. Toyota plans to lease out 600 of the plug-in hybrids to governments and corporations in Japan, the United States and Europe and gain feedback.
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| Dec 03 | Sanyo wins first lithium-ion car battery customers (NewsWeek) |
| Sanyo Electric, the world's biggest maker of rechargeable batteries, has won at least two customers for its lithium-ion batteries to fuel plug-in hybrid vehicles, an executive said. The company will start supplying the batteries to automakers, including a Japanese and a foreign carmaker, as early as in the latter half of 2011. |
| Dec 01 | Hyundai leaving Japanese market on weak sales (motortrend.com) |
 Unlike in the rest of the world's major markets, Hyundai's vehicle sales in Japan have done so poorly that the automaker will retreat from the region, Automotive News reports.
In the eight years that it's been in Japan, Hyundai has only sold 15,095 units. Yes, you read that correctly. Comparatively, the country's best-selling import car brand, Volkswagen, sold 61,996 vehicles in 2008 alone.
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| Nov 16 | Nissan Leaf included in Time Magazine's 50 best inventions of 2009 (allcarselectric.com) |
 Nissan changed the game for automakers planning electric vehicles in August when it unveiled the Leaf. The all-electric C-segment vehicle travels at speeds up to 90 miles per hour and goes 100 miles on a full charge. Nissan says it will only take 30 minutes to charge the batteries to 80% of their capacity at a high-power charging station. The Leaf is expected to sell for between $35,000 and $45,000.
The car won't hit production lines until the fall of 2010, but that didn't stop Time Magazine from calling it one of the best inventions of 2009.
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| Nov 11 | 3 fuel cell cars begin 1,100-km demonstration run (Kyodo) |
 Fuel cell-powered vehicles from Toyota Motor Corp, Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. leave the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Tokyo on Nov. 11, 2009, for a 1,100-kilometer run to Fukuoka to demonstrate that they can go as far as gasoline-powered cars on a single fueling. Toyota's FCHV-adv, Nissan's X-Trail FCV and Honda's FCX Clarity will be used in the event.
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| Oct 30 | Gloom in Japan (Bangkok Post) |
 This year's Tokyo Motor Show is feeling the effects of the global economic crisis as the number of novelties and the amount of exhibition space has shrunk for the first time in 20 years. Now in its 41st iteration, Asia's foremost car show is attempting to reel off the impact with eco-friendly cars deemed necessary for the next decade when CO2 legislation becomes even more stringent.
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| Oct 29 | Toyota's silent dream machine (timeslive.co.za) |
 The new Toyota Prius has been voted Japan's Car of the Year by motoring journalists and industry experts at the Tokyo motor show.
The new-generation Prius, which delivers more power, better fuel efficiency and lower emissions, has been Japan's top selling new car for the past five months in a row, says Toyota proudly - every month since the car first arrived in showrooms.
With more than 31 000 sales in September alone, the new Prius last month accounted for almost 11% of the entire new car market in Japan.
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| Oct 28 | Toyota Prius named Japan Car of the Year (The Auto Channel) |
 The new Toyota Prius has clinched its first major award, voted Japan Car of the Year by a panel of distinguished motoring journalists and industry experts at the Tokyo motor show. The accolade is a formal acknowledgement of the advances Toyota has made with the third generation Prius, which delivers more power yet even better fuel efficiency and lower emissions from its full hybrid powertrain.
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| Oct 26 | Japanese automakers' hydrogen car drive (AFP) |
 Imagine a car that can be refuelled in minutes but emits only water. Sounds like science fiction? In fact it already exists -- Hollywood star Jamie Lee Curtis has one. So does Honda president Takanobu Ito.
Yet while some see them as the ultimate environmentally-friendly automobiles, the high production cost means that affordable hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars are still more of a dream than reality.
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| Oct 25 | Tokyo's 7 wonderful, weird vehicles (freep.com) |
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| Oct 22 | Tokyo Motor Show opening day (independent.co.uk) |
 At the opening day of the Tokyo Motor Show, October 21, Japan's big automakers enjoyed all the spotlight as major foreign automakers are totally absent from this year's recession-reduced affair.
Nissan made the biggest splash to open the exhibition as it announced the arrival of four electric vehicles in the next several years.
Their groundbreaking Leaf EV, tiny Land Glider EV and NV200 EV commercial van all made their Japanese debuts. Production is slated for the trio, which comes as something of a surprise with regards to motorcycle-inspired and futuristic Land Glider EV.
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| Oct 20 | Porsche, Daimler snub Tokyo's car show as China eclipses Japan (Bloomberg) |
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| Oct 19 | Japanese car makers out to electrify Tokyo show (AFP) |
 Move over hybrids -- the biggest buzz at this year's Tokyo Motor Show looks set to come from electric cars as the dream of affordable zero-emission vehicles moves closer to reality.
Japanese automakers, pioneers in hybrid cars powered by a mixture of petrol and electricity, are now looking to take fuel-efficient motoring to the next level with vehicles that run on rechargeable batteries.
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| Oct 16 | Nissan's Fairlady Z Roadster hits dealerships (Mainichi) |
 Nissan Motor Co.'s Fairlady Z Roadster hit the market on Thursday, company officials said.
The two-seat coupe boasts better performance due to reduced body weight, and a improved design to prevent turbulence inside the vehicle when the powered roof is down.
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| Oct 15 | Mazdaspeed 3 is a hot, youthful hatchback (AP) |
 At Japanese automaker Mazda, its $23,945, which is the starting manufacturers suggested retail price, including destination charge, for a 2010 Mazdaspeed3 car.
With new exterior styling, a turbocharged, four-cylinder engine that puts out as much horsepower as some V-6s, a "hot hatch" body shape and sport-tuned suspension, the Mazdaspeed3 is a fun-to-drive, youthful, five-passenger auto.
Buyers just have to get over its new front styling that looks like someone grinning with an orange peel in his mouth.
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| Oct 10 | The leaning car of Tokyo (Sydney Morning Herald) |
 This zero-emissions car can lean into corners like a motorbike. Nissan's Land Glider will be one of the stars at this month's Tokyo motor show.
It looks like a car but drives like a motorbike.
This is the Nissan Land Glider and the Japanese car maker will reveal it in the metal at the Tokyo motor show next week.
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| Oct 07 | 2009 Tokyo Auto Show Preview: Toyota's Toyobaru, FT-86 Concept (edmunds.com) |
 For years, Toyota has yearned to build a fun new lightweight rear-wheel-drive sports coupe in the mold of the cult Corolla Sport from the '80s. Now, at last, it's on the way with this fascinating FT-86 concept, which will bow at the 2009 Tokyo Auto Show later this month.
The FT-86, of course, is the sportster that the world has half-jokingly referred to as the "Toyobaru." It was developed with Subaru and has a 2.0-liter normally aspirated Subaru flat-4 engine and a six-speed manual transmission.
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| Oct 06 | Green cars continue rise in Japanese auto market (Xinhua) |
 Hybrid cars, which use both gasoline and electricity, continued to dominate Japan's auto making sector, according to statistics released by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association (JADA) on Tuesday.
For a third consecutive month, the Toyota Prius was the most popular car in the country, selling 31,758 units in September and 116,298 units in the first half of the year.
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| Oct 04 | Japanese fear Hyundai most (journalgazette.net) |
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| Oct 02 | Refreshed Honda CR-Z to debut at Tokyo Motor Show (wired.com) |
 Honda has offered a sneak preview of the CR-Z hybrid, which is debuting amongst a slew of alt-fuel concepts at the 41st annual Tokyo Motor Show.
We've been teased by CR-Z concepts for almost two years, but these images give us the best idea of the car that might go on sale in Japan as soon as February of 2010. The latest CR-Z is a bit tamer than the last concept we showed you - those LED-adorned fenders would never survive a supermarket curb, and the integrated exhaust was most likely cost-prohibitive - but still a worthy spiritual successor to the legendary CRX.
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| Sep 30 | Global slump hits Tokyo Motor Show (Japan Times) |
 The shock waves from the global economic crisis have reached this year's Tokyo Motor Show.
The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said Tuesday that only two foreign automakers will participate in the 41st version of the exhibition, which starts Oct. 23, down from 26 at the previous show in 2007.
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| Sep 23 | Hybrid and Electric Cars Will Emit Vroomtones (Reuters) |
 After years of complaints from blind pedestrians that ultra-quiet hybrid cars pose a safety threat, the auto industry is responding by producing on-board devices that emit sound. Nissan is considering using a high- pitched science fiction sound for its upcoming all-electric Nissan Leaf. The Fisker Karma luxury plug-in hybrid might use a sound halfway between a jet engine and an F1 racecar. And Volkswagen's E-Up! concept car, described as "the Beetle for the 21st century," might use the very 20th century sound of a common gas engine.
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| Sep 18 | Why Japan is the land of rising car satisfaction (Daily Mail) |
 Japanese and German cars make their owners happy but French models drive them to distraction, a poll reveals today.
Five of the top ten cars in the Which? Car owners' satisfaction table are Japanese - and four of the rest are from the family of German car giant Volkswagen - namely two Audis, a Skoda and a Porsche.
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| Sep 15 | Toyota Unveils Redesigned Land Cruiser Prado In Japan (automotive-business-review.com) |
| Toyota Motors has launched the redesigned "Land Cruiser Prado" in Japan. The new Land Cruiser Prado is a mid-size, authentic four-wheel drive vehicle, under the Land Cruiser brand. Its specific improvements include a roomier cabin through increased space between the front and second-row seats, as well as enhancements to the full frame structure and higher body rigidity. |
| Sep 14 | Toyota sticks with nickel after lithium Prius test (Bloomberg) |
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| Sep 10 | Japan studies noisier hybrids (Sydney Morning Herald) |
 An appeal of a hybrid or electric car is its super-quiet drive. But worries are growing blind people may be endangered by their silence.
The Japanese government has set up a panel with automakers, organisations for the blind and consumers groups to come up with a solution, which could have such vehicles emitting what sounds like engine noise or musical sounds like a cell-phone ring-tone, officials said on Tuesday.
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| Sep 10 | Subaru Liberty First Steer (caradvice.com.au) |
 It was back in 1954 that Subaru produced its first car, now some 55 years later, the once small and unrecognised brand has become a powerhouse for producing reliable and good performing vehicles. Subaru has done exceptionally well of late, so much so that it even outsold Mazda, month on month, in the United States for the first time ever recently. In August this year, Subaru Australia sold 2602 cars and came in ninth overall in the national sales tally.
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| Sep 06 | Still beauty and the beast (The Star) |
 There's a new look and feel to two popular vehicles that are both best-sellers in their segments: The elegant Toyota Camry sedan and the rough-and-ready Mitsubishi Triton pick-up truck have gotten facelifts and here's how their brand new looks measure up. The current Toyota Camry has been the country's leading mid-size executive car for three years with some 28,000 units sold to date.
If you've been in or seen one, it's easy to understand why. The Camry has all the goods a family man or a corporate climber would like in his car, and in an appealing form too.
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| Sep 01 | In era of mpg, Japanese big on going small (AutoNews) |
| Japanese carmakers are revamping their product plans to include the more fuel-efficient vehicles required by changing regulations for corporate average fuel economy. By 2015, Nissan expects 10 percent of its U.S. sales to be electric vehicles. Nissan is not talking about just microcars; it envisions mid-sized electric cars, too. |
| Aug 28 | Better Place targets Tokyo taxis (Reuters) |
 Electric vehicle infrastructure company Better Place chose Yokohama, Japan, to show off its first - and the world's first - battery swapping station. Now the startup is planning to work with the Japanese government to build a pilot project in Tokyo that will create the world's first electric taxi fleet with swappable batteries.
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| Aug 27 | Environment Ministry plans regulations on noise from tires (Asahi) |
| The Environment Ministry will set up a committee in autumn to discuss regulations on noise from automobile tires, now the noisiest component of vehicles. The ministry plans to impose the regulations possibly in fiscal 2011. Research will be conducted on the noise levels of passenger cars, buses and trucks, as well as on the various tires in the market and their treads. |
| Aug 27 | Orders for Lexus HS 250h 20 times higher than Toyota expected (allcarselectric.com) |
 Perhaps it's the gas mileage rating of 35 mpg city, 34 mpg highway. Perhaps it's the tax breaks offered in Japan for hybrid vehicles, or perhaps it's because it's Lexus' only dedicated hybrid model, but whatever the cause is, Lexus surely isn't complaining that pre-orders for the Lexus HS 250h have exceeded their expectations by a factor of twenty.
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| Aug 26 | New company aims to have cheap and efficient electric vehicles on road in 2013 (Mainichi) |
 Major correspondence education firm Benesse Corp. and used car giant Gulliver International Co. are teaming up with a Keio University professor to put affordable electric vehicles on the road in 2013, it has been announced.
The firms and Keio University professor Hiroshi Shimizu have established a new company, named SIM-Drive, to propagate electric vehicle technology pioneered by Shimizu.
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| Aug 20 | Toyota falling behind rivals in race to go electric (New York Times) |
 Despite Toyota's image as the world's greenest automaker, the company that brought us the Prius - totem of the environmentally conscious - has fallen behind in the race for the all-electric car. Mitsubishi Motors started leasing its all-electric vehicle, the i-MiEV, in June. Next year, Nissan Motor is set to release its electric car, the Leaf. But Toyota does not plan to introduce an all-electric car until 2012. Instead, later this year, it plans to introduce a plug-in electric-gasoline hybrid, and only a few hundred initially.
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| Aug 20 | Rumored: Suzuki Kizashi Hybrid in 2011 (edmunds.com) |
| A hybrid version of the new Suzuki Kizashi sedan will debut in North America in 2011, featuring a compact lithium-ion battery pack and a hybrid gas-electric powertrain jointly developed with former affiliate General Motors. |