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| 5/24 |
| 2005/9/17-20 [Transportation/Car/RoadHogs, Transportation/Car/Hybrid] UID:39738 Activity:kinda low |
9/17 Toyota to go 100% hybrid:
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0509/15/C07-315611.htm
Related Update, Toyota to reduce the price of hybrids:
http://tinyurl.com/a2lmv (usatoday)
(this was mentioned in the first article as well)
\_ They're going hybrid with the Highlanders, and competitors to
follow. GREAT! I can't wait to get my Chevy Suburban or Hummer
hybrids so that I can drive in style for the mere gasoline cost
of a traditional Honda Accord.
\_ Sport Utility Vehicles have gotten a lot of bad press lately,
but they're manufactured for one reason: to transport today's
modern genetic super breed of wives, kids, and dogs which can
weigh in excess of 250lbs each.
\_ Holy shit. When did everyone upgrade to Marmaduke?
\_ Toyota has a habit of doing what they say they will. GM is sooo
screwed.
\_ Toyota is like, Microsoft. They can do whatever they want
and force competitors to catch up. GM/Ford is like Sun Micro,
they play stupid immature marketing games and come out with
lamewares like StarOffice or something, and they play the
number games very well but in the long run it's just fruitless
\_ in Sun's defense, StarOffice was never meant to be a "real"
product. it was acquired along with a Czech company and
for a long time had no support. Also, one of those stupid
immature marketing games was called "Java."
\_ Has Sun made any money off of Java yet?
\_ Last I heard, IBM made more money of Java than Sun
did. This drives the Sun people I know up the wall,
more because they dislike IBM than because they like
Java. -gm
\_ < 200 million last year, FYI. If soffice
product marketing team let me play, I can get
a lot further than they got right now. -sun guy
\_ soffice is a pos, I can't believe they make
us use it - also a sun guy
\_ Nweaver taught me to write in Postscript during
our lazy afternoons together.
the afternoon times. -sun tranny
\_ Java may be not making them money as much as letting
them survive, since if everyone used proprietary
Windows stuff to run web servers Sun would have been
toast a long time ago.
\_ They've monetized J2ME on cell phones. i.e. games |
| 5/24 |
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| www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0509/15/C07-315611.htm Next Story Thursday, September 15, 2005 Image Toyota Toyota is aiming to produce as many as 400,000 gasoline-electric vehicles in 2006, including the Highlander hybrid. Frankfurt Auto Show Notebook Toyota sees 100% hybrid vehicle lineup Record fuel prices will shrink demand for its conventional cars, automak er contends. said all its vehicles will ev entually be run by hybrid gasoline-electric motors, as record fuel pric es curb demand for conventional automobiles. "In the future, the cars you see from Toyota will be 100 percent hybrid, " Executive Vice President Kazuo Okamoto told reporters, without giving a time frame. Japan's biggest carmaker is aiming to make as many as 400,000 gasoline-e lectric vehicles in 2006, including Prius cars, Camry sedans, Highlande r sport-utility vehicles and Coaster buses. Watanabe said he aims to cut production cost s and halve the $5,000 price premium on such vehicles, without giving d etails. "Toyota has been the leader of the pack in environmental technology and they will probably continue to be," said Norihito Kanai, an analyst at Meiji Dresdner Asset Management Co. "Many of its rivals were at first not so aggressive in hybrids, but now we see everyone joining. " Hybrid vehicles combine a gasoline engine with a battery pack that's rec harged through braking. Electricity powers the vehicle at low speeds, e nabling the Prius to go up to 55 miles on a gallon of gas, double the m ileage of an automobile with a conventional engine. Mazda plans to sell more cars in Russia Japanese automaker Mazda Motor Corp. is targeting the Russian market for more sales, citing growing demand there for its sedans and compacts. "Demand is exceeding our capacity," Daniel Morris, Mazda's senior managi ng executive officer, told Dow Jones Newswires at the Frankfurt auto sh ow. He didn't say whether the company would increase production in the count ry. Another Mazda executive, Masahiro Moro, vice president of the selec ted markets and retail management division, said the company would like ly sell as many as 20,000 cars in Russia in the current fiscal year. New car registrations jump 75% in Europe The number of new car registrations in Europe rose by 75 percent during August from the same time last year, industry group ACEA said Wednesda y In August, new car registrations in the European Union excluding Malta, Cyprus, and the European Free Trade Area countries of Iceland, Norway a nd Switzerland, rose to 894,226 from 831,680 in August 2004. As a resul t of the strong performance in August, cumulative figures for the first eight months of the year showed a decline of just 05 percent. |
| tinyurl.com/a2lmv -> www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2005-09-12-toyota-hybrid-premium_x.htm Toyota hopes to cut hybrid premium in half By James R Healey, USA TODAY NEW YORK The president of Toyota Motor says he has told his engineering chief to find a way to cut in half the price difference between fuel-ef ficient gas-electric hybrids and similar gasoline models. By David Paul Morris, Getty Images Katsuaki Watanabe also said here Monday that Toyota will sell 1 million h ybrid vehicles a year worldwide by early next decade, up from a planned 300,000 this year, about 60% in the USA. And he said Toyota is developin g fuel-efficient diesel-power vehicles for the US market but "not in t he short term." Watanabe's remarks were at a briefing for Wall Street investment analysts and members of the business media. Toyota's intentions are significant because it is big enough and respecte d enough in the USA that rivals often must match what Toyota does. Watan abe's remarks suggest that other automakers must begin to aggressively s lice the costs of developing hybrids so they can, in turn, cut prices. And it appears there will be no immediate pressure from Toyota to develop clean-burning diesel vehicles, which use 20% to 40% less fuel than simi lar gas models and can be tuned to pollute less than gasoline engines. Honda's hybrid system is simpler tha n Toyota's and that should mean lower costs "that can be transferred to the customer," spokesman Chris Naughton says. Hybrids use less fuel than similar gasoline-only vehicles, but they are p riced at least $3,500 more. That means owners might never save enough on gas even at today's prices to make up for the premium. "My goal is to reduce that difference to one-half the current levels, but I cannot say what the time frame for that would be," Watanabe said. He made it clear, though, that Toyota is moving rapidly. "I have given instructions to Mr Takimoto to do that," he said, referrin g to Masatami Takimoto, executive vice president in charge of Toyota's w orldwide research and development. "I assume Mr Takimoto must be rackin g his brain about how to do that," Watanabe said, acknowledging that hyb rid components are much more expensive than gasoline engines. One way to cut costs would be to make hybrid components in the USA instea d of shipping them from Japan. Beyond the hybrid premium, Toyota dealers have been getting an average $8 00 more than the sticker price for Prius hybrids the past six to eight w eeks because fuel prices have sparked demand, says Art Spinella of CNW M arketing Research. "Dealers are getting pretty much whatever they want i n their local markets for Priuses," he says. He thinks Toyota could doub le Prius demand if it cuts the hybrid premium in half. Toyota's most recent US-market hybrids are positioned as the high-end m odels more power and features than similar gas vehicles and are pric ed about $5,000 more than their gasoline counterparts. Used to be somebody would pay $2,000, $3,000 m ore for a big V-8 and the macho and muscle and squealing tires that went with it," said Jim Press, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA. "Now, at least in some places, people pay the premium for the (hybrid's) image o f being concerned about a clean environment, contributing to their child ren's future health and depending less on foreign oil." |