Toyota News and Features 21 December 2017

The latest from the UK and overseas

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Toyota powers up its electric vehicle ambitions
Toyota Motor Corporation has mapped out its plans to sell more than 5.5 million electrified vehicles a year by 2030 – a figure that includes one million zero-emission vehicles. This will be achieved through acceleration of its development and launch plans for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). Read more here.

Progress towards these goals will be helped by a new feasibility study with Panasonic to establish a joint automotive prismatic battery business. This will look at how rising demand can be addressed, while taking issues such as global warming, air pollution, the depletion of natural resources and energy security into account. Read more here.

Toyota recognised for environmental excellence
Toyota has been acclaimed as one of the world’s greenest companies – and a global number one among car makers – in Newsweek magazine’s annual Green Rankings. Read more here.

GR Super Sport heading for Salon debut
Toyota Gazoo Racing will take the wraps off a new GR Super Sport Concept at the Tokyo Auto Salon in January. Inspired by the team’s top-level participation in the FIA World Endurance Championship, it will show how technologies developed through motorsport can be applied to an exciting new concept model. Read more here.

Toyota establishes two new companies
Toyota has announced its decision to merge its wholly owned subsidiary Toyota Fleet Leasing Co with its wholly owned second-tier subsidiary Toyota Tokyo Rental & Leasing Co to establish a new company, Toyota Mobility Service Co. In addition to aiming to strengthen the existing corporate automobile leasing and rental car businesses, Toyota intends to plan and provide new mobility services in anticipation of a mobility society. Read more here.

Meanwhile, it has also announced its decision to merge subsidiaries Toyota Technocraft. J-TACS Corporation and Toyota Modellista International Corporation to establish a new company that meet customers’ increasingly diversified needs, as demands on car manufacturers also increase, not only for creating vehicles, but also in the field of customisation. Read more here.

Yaris claims five-star safety ranking
The latest version of the Toyota Yaris has achieved a top five-star ranking in independent safety testing by Euro NCAP. The result owes much to the active safety and driver assistance support provided by the car’s Toyota Safety Sense package – provided as standard on all versions of the supermini. Read more here.

Silver jubilee for Burnaston
It’s 25 years since Toyota Manufacturing UK’s Burnaston factory built its first car – the first of more than four million to emerge from the Derbyshire plant. Burnaston’s history is about much more than just vehicle production, however, taking in environmental leadership, skills training, charitable initiatives and a close relationship with its local communities. Read more here.

Celebrating black history
Toyota’s using its Let’s Go Places theme to highlight historic African American locations in the USA in a Black History Tour. The culmination of the trip has been the grand opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, which includes a Toyota Gallery. Toyota has also supported a touring exhibition in the region to educate and inspire young people.

Best of the Blog: 25 Objects
To help mark 25 years of Toyota’s Burnaston factory (see above, also), the official Toyota blog has looked at 25 diverse objects that illustrate the way it works – from tools to solar panels and a children’s nursery. Together the collection provides a snapshot of the factory’s proud history, from the spade used to break ground for its construction, to the solar panels that help power its production lines. Read more here.

Media website updates                                  
Images of 2018 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid are available here.

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