For some inexplicable reason, Nintendo and Toyota have teamed up to turn the Nintendo DS into a navigational remote control, thereby allowing drivers (although I hope passengers do most of the fiddling) to set their routes using their game consoles.
The service, called Kuruma de DS lets you see map and destination info as well as tour information as you drive through town. The service slightly gamifies the experience by adding a POI saving option. → Read More
Honda isn’t the only Japanese car maker active in robotics (with Asimo etc.), Toyota has been active in this area for quite some time, too. Big T showcased a total of four robots yesterday, all with the healthcare and nursing markets in mind. It’s not a surprise Japan’s biggest car company is focusing on these areas, as its home country has the oldest society in the world (23% of the population are 65 or older).
Here are the robots Toyota showed during their press conference in Tokyo. → Read More
The Linux Foundation announced today the first ever Automotive Linux Summit. Taking place in Japan on November 28, 2011, it will be an opportunity to address the growing need for carmakers and Linux developers to collaborate on the future of cars as devices. Nissan and Toyota will both be there, along with Intel, NEC, and a host of other mobile solutions developers. → Read More
Tokyo-based robot venture ZMP has churned out yet another robot car: this time, it’s the so-called RoboCar MEV-C, which is based on COMS, a vehicle Toyota started developing back in 2000. Just as COMS, the MEV-C is a single-person, 4-wheeled electric mini car – just with a robotic twist. → Read More
The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux, announced yesterday that Toyota is its newest Gold-level member. This is a pretty interesting development for both organizations. From the official press release: “Toyota is joining The Linux Foundation as a Gold member to maximize its own investment in Linux while fostering open innovation throughout the automotive ecosystem.” The continued proliferation of Linux into products across all markets means that it’s more and more likely that a mostly off-the-shelf system can be quickly tweaked for your specific industry. By supporting the Linux Foundation financially, Toyota and other members help ensure that development continues on the Linux core, atop of which they can add their own special sauce. → Read More
America’s first pipeline-fed, retail hydrogen fueling station opened in Torrance, California, within Los Angeles county on Tuesday. The station will provide hydrogen for fuel cell and hybrid vehicles in the area. It was built through a joint effort by Toyota, Air Products and Shell alternative energies, with funding from the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The station’s first customer was the owner of a Honda FCX Clarity.
A handful of hydrogen fuel cell black cabs have already hit the streets in London. Hydrogen fuel cell forklifts are already widely available, and used in warehouse fleets from Wal-Mart to Whole Foods. Fuel cell cars — promised by manufacturers including Toyota, Daimler, GM, Honda, and Hyundai — are not slated for mass market availability until 2015, though. The dominant clean vehicle technology available in the U.S. remains the battery electric vehicle… → Read More
http://player.ooyala.com/player.swf?embedCode=V2Zm1kMjpmx6e4KJQE_-FPG_ZRWwqraE&version=2 The Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf are enjoying lots of free publicity right now. Each of their unique approaches to cleaner mobility has drawn a lot of hype. What about the car that started it all? What’s the next step for the Toyota Prius? → Read More
The battle for the in-dash system is just starting to heat up, as we leave the era of half-hearted in-house interfaces and enter a period where your car will be as powerful and accessible as your smartphone. Ford’s been leading this charge with Sync, and Tesla has a new approach as well, and now Microsoft and Toyota are putting their heads together to make a new platform, and like everything else these days, it’s in the cloud.
The announcement is a bit short on details, but it’s clear that this isn’t just a new GPS system using Bing. Microsoft is hoping to position itself as the connective tissue between people and their cars. → Read More
Toyota isn’t just a car company: as we reported multiple times over the last years, it produces quite cool robots, too. The company’s music playing robots are particularly amazing, and the latest versions were presented over last weekend in Tokyo. → Read More
The Toyota RAV4 EV just debuted at the LA Auto show. It’s not much of a surprise, really. It’s been known for a while that Toyota and Tesla were working together on the CUV EV. Tesla was tasked with the developing the power train, battery, electronics, electric motor, gearbox and software — pretty much the heart of the vehicle. The first crop are already on the road and seeing a 100 mile range but engineers are working on improving that for the 2012 model. → Read More
If you’re going to be testing unmarked automated cars in the field, inevitably people will get curious and – because it’s 2010 and all – whip out their video cameras or cellphones to record them in action.
Here’s one that was captured last March at the Googleplex, stopping for a red light, giving the guy who recorded the video (hat tip to Van Tucker) the chance to get some close-ups of the car and the sensor that’s mounted on top. → Read More
For some, the end of 2012 bring upon us, well..the end. For Toyota, the end of 2012 marks the beginning of their conquest to build the largest fleet of hybrid vehicles. With six new hybrids coming, Toyota has stated that hybrids are here to stay and their benefit to us will be great. All of the hybrids will be totally new models. → Read More
Honda isn’t exactly the first Japanese car company that comes to mind when thinking about hybrids. Toyota, thanks to its Prius and hybrid Lexus line-up, won the general populus a few years back, but Honda is set to make another run with the third generation of Honda Civic Hybrids along with a new line of electric vehicles.
These new lines should start hitting streets in both Japan and the US sometime next year for the 2012 model year. This comes on top of the current plans to introduce a hybrid version of the B-segment Honda Fit later this year. Details about the up-coming electric car wasn’t announced, but a few tantalizing specs concerning the next-gen Honda Civic Hybrid leaked a few weeks back and seem to confirm today’s report. Can we say Prius-killer? Yup. → Read More
Toyota settled a longstanding patent dispute today with Paice LLC, a firm that first sued the Japanese auto juggernauts back in 2004.
The technology disputed had to do with supplying torque from both an electric motor and an internal combustion engine to a car’s wheels, according to earlier reports by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and confirmed by a Paice spokesperson today. → Read More
The all-electric RAV4 is set to make a comeback. But this time around Tesla Motors is going to provide the electric powerplant, rather than Toyota themselves. In fact, Tesla might even be doing the bulk of the assembling if this CNN Money report is correct.
Toyota announced that the Japanese auto maker planned to invest $50 million into Tesla after a successful initial public offering. That took place a couple weeks back on June 29 and this is the first we’re seeing from the investment. → Read More
After a better-than-expected pop on the first day of its IPO, Tesla’s stock (under the ticker symbol TSLA) started to slide a few days after. It is now hanging 7 percent below its initial pricing of $17, closing at $15.80 per share today.
Only a week on the market, Tesla’s stock has fluctuated greatly, trading at a high of $30.42 and dropping to a low of $14.98. While some hoped Tesla would provide the “Netscape moment” for clean tech IPOs, Tesla seems to have the same struggles other greentech IPOs have experienced. Just last month, commercial rooftop panel maker Solyndra canceled its IPO plans. → Read More
Toyota has never been known as an auto maker that’s really active in the robotics area (as opposed to Honda, for example), at least when it comes to producing robots with high show value. There are two exceptions though: one is Winglet, the Segway-like robotic vehicle Toyota showed in 2008, and the other is a violin-playing humanoid that made its debut back in 2007. → Read More
Mind-reading devices are nothing really new, but Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) apparently sees a huge potential for that market in the near future. The MIC will join forces with selected private tech companies to develop and commercialize robots and consumer electronics that can be controlled through thought. The project kicks off this fiscal year and is supposed to end by 2020. → Read More
Could cosmic rays be responsible for Toyota‘s recent woes? It sounds like the stuff of sci-fi, but it may well be all too real. Italics mean business. → Read More
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple months, you know that Toyota has had problems with sudden acceleration of some of its vehicles. Apparently, the root cause of the problem is still unknown, which is a little troubling to the average consumer. Toyota claims to be doing everything they can to investigate, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. Now everyone and their brother are suddenly product design engineers and have the gall to tell Toyota what to do and how to do it. → Read More
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