Tag Archives: Toyota

This Toyota Tacoma Has Driven 1.5 Million Miles, But There’s A Catch

July 10, 2021 admin

A car reaching a million miles is unusual enough, but Mike Neal here is already midway to the next million. This is based on the fact that his 2008 Toyota Tacoma has clocked more than 1.5 million miles. That’s a little more than 2.5 million kilometers.

Neal has owned the truck since new when he got it back in November 2007. It’s a 2008 Axis Cab. The engine is a 2.7-liter four-cylinder mated to a six-speed transmission that produces 159 horsepower, and it can tow up to 3500 lbs.

Engine	2.7 liter 4 cylinder
Power	159 HP
Torque	180 LB-FT
Transmission	six-speed automatic
Towing capacity	3,500 lbs

It’s quite a frugal engine. Neal reportedly keeps a record of the Tacoma’s fuel economy as well, which he claims is between 22.5 and 23.5 miles per gallon.

This Toyota Tacoma Has Driven 1.5 Million Miles, But There's A Catch
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Just in case you were curious, here’s the scoop: The odometer displays 999,999 miles, and the vehicle trips every 2500 miles. As a result, Neal keeps track of his mileage using the trip odometer. He displays the mileage on the back of the vehicle with stickers, and he refreshes the amount every 10,000 miles.

How exactly did Neal clock so many miles? It is due to his occupation, in which he travels roughly 500 miles per day around Virginia and North Carolina. Neal is a nuclear medicine technician who does PET scans.

This Toyota Tacoma Has Driven 1.5 Million Miles, But There's A Catch
- image 1000542

For Neal, the Tacoma has shown to be really dependable. At 880,000 miles, he had to completely replace the engine with another one that had previously already logged roughly 100,000 miles. A new torque converter was due after 1.3 million miles, and Neal opted to put in a new transmission at that point, as the previous one was weak and likely nearing the end of its life.

Considering the high mileage and daily drive of hundreds of miles, the insides are in excellent condition. Although there are traces of wear, the cab is still darnn tidy. Tacomas in general are known to hold their value well, one of the strongest in the industry.

This Toyota Tacoma Has Driven 1.5 Million Miles, But There's A Catch
- image 1000540

Apparently, Mike’s truck is worth between $7000 & $9000 according to KBB.com, even today. Neal got the truck over 13 years ago for around $22,000. It’s staggering that it still holds close to just under half its value.

It’s possible that Neal needs a new Tacoma. His wife is now pressing him to stop driving the Truck and retire it for household duties. Neal however is still relentless, continuing to use his truck and has no intention of selling it. The video’s host Jeff is attempting to start a campaign to get Neal a brand new one from Toyota. People like Neal certainly deserve it as they are a testament to Toyota’s legendary reliability.

Watch Jeff & Mike take us around the truck in the video below

This Is, Probably, The Fastest Toyota MR2 In Existence

May 8, 2021 admin

This second-generation MR2 might not look all that special beyond the skinny front wheels and the fat rear tires, but it hides a monster of an engine under the rear hood. The mill powering this unlikely dragster is a Honda-built K20, which the Japanese manufacturer has been offering in a variety of cars since the early 2000s. But it’s no regular Civic engine either.

Packing an incredible 1,200 horsepower, the four-cylinder pushes the MR2 beyond its limits and toward record numbers on the drag strip.

It’s not something you’d expect just by looking at it, but this thing needs less than nine seconds to run the quarter mile and crosses the line at an amazing 180 mph. How is that possible? Well, this 10-minute video from That Racing Channel will tell you more about it.

Toyota MR2

The MR2 nameplate was introduced in 1984 as a mid-engined, RWD sports car. Called the W10, the first-gen model was produced until 1989 with a selection of small-displacement four-cylinder engines, with the most powerful generating 145 horses. A second-gen model, the W20, followed from 1989 to 1999 with 2.0- and 2.2-liter engines. In the United States, the MR2 Turbo featured a turbocharged four-cylinder mill good for 200 horsepower.

2000 - 2005 Toyota MR2 Spyder
- image 16204

The final iteration of the MR2 was produced from 1999 to 2007, this time around as a two-door convertible. The W30 is often viewed as a competitor for the Mazda MX-5 Miata. The third-generation was offered with just one engine, a 1.8-liter four-cylinder, rated at 138 horsepower and 126 pound-feet of torque. Depending on transmission choice, the MR2 W30 could hit 60 mph in as quick as 6.8 seconds.

Toyota’s Akio Toyoda Chosen 2021 World Car Person of the Year

April 10, 2021 admin

Selected 2021 World Car Awards Person of the Year was Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) president and CEO.

“Akio Toyoda is the charismatic President and CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation. He has spent years successfully remaking his company. In 2020 despite COVID-19, under his leadership Toyota remained profitable, protecting jobs worldwide. He has maintained Toyota’s steady pace of development in the connected, autonomous, shared and electric (CASE) era. He has also initiated construction of the Woven City, an exciting, real-life prototype city of the future. All while actively participating in motorsports himself, as a driver,” said the World Car Awards in a statement.

Toyoda said, “At Toyota, we are very fortunate that we were able to protect the employment of our team members during COVID-19 and continue our work to meet the future challenge of our industry. Creating new ways to support the well-being of our planet and people everywhere is our commitment. This has been a difficult period in the history of the world. But it has also reminded us that people are what matters most. And if we at Toyota can contribute some measure of happiness to their lives, it will be my never-ending goal to do just that.”

Toyota joined the company in 1984, after graduating with a law degree from Keio University. He also received a masters in business administration from Wellesley, Massachusetts’ Babson College. Toyoda served in different areas of the business in Japan and overseas, before becoming a member of the TMC board of directors in 2000. He held other senior and executive vice-presidential roles until becoming TMC president in 2009.

The World Car Person of the Year award was established in 2018 to acknowledge the contributions made by an individual in the auto industry during the previous year. The World Car Awards program hands out six awards annually, which they started doing in 2003. A group of more than 90 journalists, none of whom are a part of TheTruthAboutCars.com, made the selection.

[Images: Toyota, Babson College]

A Week With: 2020 Toyota Prius XLE

September 29, 2020 admin

The 2020 Toyota Prius XLE offers good, green transportation for buyers.

The Prius has been around for a long time, going back to the end of the last century when its introduction forever changed the way consumers and manufacturers look at powertrains by using batteries and electric motors.

This little hybrid began the slow but inexorable shift away from gasoline-driven automobiles that has spurred the development and production of vehicles like the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Bolt and, of course, Tesla’s entire line-up.

Overall: For anyone still interested in fuel economy, the 2020 Toyota Prius XLE is still a champ with combined 50 mpg rating from the Environmental Protection Agency. However, once considered pricey, the Toyota Prius now carries a relatively modest sticker price by today’s standards.

(Toyota marks 20th anniversary of “The Car That Changed an Industry” with special edition Prius.)

The new Prius still features one of the most recognizable exterior shapes in the market.

In fact, it is well below the average of vehicles sold in the United States of $31,755. It’s also proven to be durable and appears to have captured – or at least earned permanent place – the hearts of American motorists, which belies all the millions of words of snark and criticism sent its way throughout the years.

Its zero to 60 time remains mired, we would guess, in the double-digit range. But it is versatile and still really is one of the greenest of green vehicles on the road after all these years, getting better than 56 miles per gallon in the city.

Exterior: The five-door hatchback shape of the Prius makes it easily one of the most recognizable vehicles on the road. Even people who couldn’t care less about automobile design can recognize a Prius almost instantly.

“…Say what you will about its exterior shape, it is one of the few designs of the past two decades to have carved out a distinctive niche in automotive lore…”

That said, the face of 2020 Toyota Prius has been altered to give the car a more contemporary look. There also LED lights and the wheel have been dressed up, providing the car with more curb appeal.

The Prius comes complete with plenty of technology, including Apple CarPlay integrated into the infotainment system.

Interior: At its heart, the Prius is a compact car. But the interior also is comfortable, and the controls and the center stack is within easy reach of the driver’s seat. The materials used throughout the cabin of this version of the Prius has been upgraded from past when the interior had the distinct aura of cost cutting that worked against the vehicle’s technical virtues.

The seats are supportive with the rear seats being quite usable. The car’s interior is quite versatile with fold-down seats that increase the car’s capacity for carrying cargo or extra luggage and the area under the hatch can even accommodate a set of golf clubs. The visibility from the driver’s seat is excellent. However, the security shade that covers the cargo area tends to interfere visibility.

(Q&A: Toyota’s hydrogen chief Jackie Birdsall.)

Powertrain: Toyota has been tinkering with the hybrid drive system that utilizes nickel-metal hydride batteries, electric motors and a 1.8-liter double overhead cam four-cylinder engine. In the 2020 Prius XLE, the basic front-wheel-drive layout has been augmented by an electronic all-wheel-drive system.

The Prius offers plenty of room for five passengers.

Overall the system produces 121 horsepower and 105 pound-feet of torque. The 2020 Prius can operate solely on electric power in slow traffic for short distances. However, once the speed picks up, Synergy drive, unique to Toyota, is designed to connect the gasoline engine, electric motor and generator into one operating unit.

Safety and Technology: The 2020 Toyota Prius XLE that we drove was loaded with technology and safety features For 2020, the Prius offers Bluetooth a new Toyota Audio 7-inch Touch-Screen Display on L Eco, LE and XLE, new Apple CarPlay and Amazon Alexa Compatibility standard on all model grades and newly standard Safety Connect on all grades.

The rear passenger seats also have been equipped with USB ports. The safety equipment on the XLE includes driver assistance features such as lane-keeping and blind-spot monitoring and pedestrian alert. The XLE version I drove also came with a head-up display and automatic headlines that turn on dark roads and off when there is oncoming traffic.

Driving Impressions: Throughout the years, Prius has come under fire due to complaints about its sluggish performance. We found the 2020 Toyota Prius XLE is still rather sluggish in certain situations on the highway.

The powertrain performed well. There is plenty of torque, coming off a standing start and the regenerative brakes add stopping power and the shifts are seem virtually invisible because they were so seamless. The steering wasn’t as crisp as in conventional sedan but the Prius delivered a smooth, steady ride and handled curves and varied pavement conditions easily.

(Sales sliding, Toyota rethinks future of the Prius.)

Wrap Up: The Prius has been a mainstay of the Toyota line-up for years and while it may not be th most fashionable passenger car on the road today – and let’s face it, the automotive industry is nothing if not acutely fashion conscious – it has proven itself to be a versatile and reliable vehicle for urban and suburban driving.

The drop in fuel prices has diminished some of its appeal, but it is still one of the most efficient vehicles on the road today. As it prices come come into line with other sedans and crossovers available on dealer lots these days, it does offer the added benefit of being more environmentally friendly than other vehicle choices. The fact that the vehicle introduced years ago and hasn’t been scrapped underscores its durable character.

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Toyota Aims for the Moon

September 1, 2020 admin

Toyota is developing a lunar land rover that the company hopes NASA will use for a 2024 lunar mission.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a grand vision of flying off to Mars. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda is thinking of somewhere just a bit closer to home: the moon.

Toyota is working up the design for a six-wheeled, hydrogen-powered rover that you might want to think of as a Lunar Land Rover. Substantially more sophisticated and capable than the dune buggy-like rovers used during the Apollo mission a half-century ago, the Japanese automaker hopes its design will be picked by NASA for the Artemis moon mission it is planning to launch by 2024.

“We have now found a new ‘road,’ which is the moon. And for this new road, we will be able to make a new vehicle,” Takao Sato, project head of Toyota’s Lunar Exploration Mobility Works and a former interior design engineer who worked on the Prius hybrid. “This is a dream for us.”

(Cost of Toyota, Mazda Alabama plant jumps 50% to $2.3B.)

It’s been nearly 50 years since the Apollo mission wrapped up. After the initial landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in Apollo 11, the astronauts assigned to subsequent missions had the opportunity to spread out from their landing site using a primitive, open-air buggy developed, in part, by General Motors.

Toyota’s lunar module concept is a six-wheeled beast designed to handle a variety of tasks.

Going forward, NASA and partners, including the European Space Agency, want something more sophisticated that not only features greater range but also offers more amenities. That starts with an enclosed and pressurized cabin that includes both toilet facilities and sleeping quarters. Those would be essential considering the Artemis missions intend to have astronauts planting boots on the moon for weeks at a time.

Toyota’s Lunar Rover design adds an extra axles, six wheels expected to give it greater mobility on the pockmarked moon’s surface.

Then there’s the powertrain. Rather than going with a battery, with its hefty mass and limited energy storage, Toyota is lifting an idea from its Mirai fuel-cell vehicle. Its lunar design would be powered by hydrogen – though, without an atmosphere to draw oxygen from, both gases would need to be carried onboard.

Eventually, the goal would be to produce both hydrogen and oxygen from the water believed to be available on various parts of the lunar surface, primarily near the poles. Initially, tanks of the fuel – and the oxygen to combine with — would have to be delivered to the lunar surface.

The new lunar vehicle from Toyota will borrow fuel cell technology from the Mirai.

(Toyota surprises analysts, turns small Q1 profit.)

Whatever the method, NASA wants whatever rover it finally goes with to be able to manage 1,000 kilometers – about 621 miles — per tank, and as much as 10,000 kilometers during a 42-day period.

The Lunar Rover will use individual wheel motors, six of them each generating 40 kilowatts, or about 54 horsepower, apiece. The maximum speed will be between 12 and 15 mph, according to Toyota.

The Toyota design would still make use of the sun, when available, with a retractable solar panel on its roof to provide additional electricity.

There will be three big antenna on the roof, as well, including ones to send data while also allowing NASA to operate the rover remotely – though, even at the speed of light there will be a roughly 1.5 second delay between issuing a command on Earth and it reaching the lunar surface.

How much each Lunar Rover would cost hasn’t been determined, though it will be far more expensive than anything Toyota has built to date. That said, the original Apollo rovers were supposed to cost about $19 million each but, with cost overruns, doubled that to about $38 million each. Adjusted for inflation, that would work out to about $274 million today, adjusted for inflation.

This provides the scale needed to see just how large Toyota’s lunar rover really is.

A decade ago, when the Lunar X Prize was announced, it was estimated that it would cost as much as $950,000 per pound to get something to the moon. Toyota expects its Lunar Rover – which would be about the size of two microbuses – will weigh in at 3.5 tons. So, the price of getting such a big machine to the moon will likely dwarf a rover’s price tag.

(Toyota building lunar rover for Japan’s 2030 moon landing.)

Toyota is by no means the only company hoping to land the plum, out-of-this-world contract. Company official say they hope to find out if they’ve won by year-end.

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