Forums: Toyota Prius

TORRANCE, Calif. – Toyota Motor Corp., hoping to solidify its standing as the top brand for Hispanic buyers in the U.S., is offering drivers a series of stickers that celebrates their Hispanic heritage. The decals contain the phrase "somos muchos," or "we are many," followed by cultures, regions and popular descriptors from all over Latin America, such as "somos muchos Mexicanos" and "somos muchos Hondurenos." The decals, designed to be stuck on bumpers or windows, come in more than 100 different versions and are available in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

It’s actually been a long-standing policy for many years, but United Auto Workers leadership have confirmed they will continue to enforce the policy and probably be even more aggressive. This is pure marketing genius I tell you, especially for an organization with a serious image problem. The Detroit News reports that Kansas City Business Journal reporter James Dornbrook learned this lesson the hard way as he was asked to remove his Toyota Camry from Local 249′s parking lot by an unidentified member. The scribe later wrote that his Camry was built at Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant and that the popular...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Toyota recalled 1.13 million Corolla sedans and Matrix hatchbacks Thursday because their engines may stall, the latest in a string of quality problems at the Japanese automaker. The recall covers vehicles from the 2005-2008 model years sold in North America. Three accidents and one minor injury have been reported, though Toyota said a link to the engine issue has not been confirmed. The automaker said vehicles with 1ZZ-FE engines may contain a defective engine control module....

Alex Severinsky, a Soviet emigrant who began his career developing antitank-warfare instrumentation, patented a system for powering gas-electric hybrids in 1994. Toyota used his system for the Prius without permission or payment. Until this week. Alex Severinsky recieved his master's degree in electrical engineering from the Kharkov College of Radioelectronics, in Kharkov, Ukraine, in 1967. Eight years later, he earned his Ph.D. in the same discipline from Moscow's Institute for Precision Measurements in Radioelectronics and Physics. Three years after that, he emigrated to the United States as a refugee. On September 6, 1994, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued...

In what is little surprise to anyone who is not a tort lawyer or megalomaniac Senator, government researchers determined that runaway Toyotas were caused by driver errors. While Toyota was quick to say that the matter is not yet settled, Shout Bits is now prepared to state that when an accelerator is pushed to the floor and the brakes are not applied at all, an accident may ensue. That’s right, when the US Government did an independent study of crashed Toyotas, they found that in every instance the gas was to the floor and brake was unapplied. Naturally, all the...