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Toyota RAV4 "Adventure" brings the butch

Just last week, your humble author had a 2013 Toyota RAV4 in his garage, and he couldn't help noting that even in mid-level XLE trim, its aesthetics lacked oomph, due in large part to its cheap-looking black bumpers and airy-looking wheel wells. Judging by the RAV4 "Adventure" on display at the Geneva Motor Show, someone at Toyota must've been thinking the same thing.
With Japan's biggest automaker understandably focused on bigger reveals, information on this butched-up softroader has proven to be hard to come by, with no press materials whatsoever. We don't even know if this is a pure concept or if it's actually being considered for production. Either way, we approve. The 20-inch dark-finish alloys probably don't do much for ride quality, but they certainly look nicely aggressive, as does the new lower fascia with its prominent lower lip. Other changes include beefier wheel arches, side rails, headlamps with integrated LEDs, twin-element fog lamps and mesh grille inserts. All of the changes are quite well integrated - enough so that the Adventure largely avoids looking like a SEMA refugee in person.

There's a familiar ring to this 1966 video of GM's hydrogen ElectroVan

"What we need is fuel cells that can run on a hydrocarbon fuel and air." It can be fun and educational to revisit the past as we look into the future. While we do have cars that plug in today, the first big batch of hydrogen powered vehicles is not yet arrived (but the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell CUV is leading the way). The idea of hydrogen as a promising future technology was also true in 1960s, when General Motors made a promotional movie for the ElectroVan. Turns out, the future then shared more than a little with the future now. As you can see in the short promotional video below for the hydrogen-powered ElectroVan, a modified 1966 GMC HandiVan, a big hurdle in the mid 1960s was the difficulty of obtaining hydrogen fuel. GM offered a possible solution at the time: "Hydrogen and oxygen are expensive and impractical fuels for a car. What we need is fuel cells that can run on a hydrocarbon fuel and air." Unlike today's hydrogen fuel cell cars, the ElectroVan used liquid hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells to get a range of between 100 and 150 miles. Not bad for the first hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle in the world. GM tested the ElectroVan on the GM grounds before sending it into storage and then to the company's heritage center. For another view to the past, this time with some focus on electric vehicles, take a look at a video from the 1994 Chicago Auto Show, also available below. Twenty years ago, the green vehicle hype was on the Toyota EV-50 electric car, the solar-powered Honda EVX (and a solar Honda racing car) and a hydrogen-powered Mazda Miata. The announcer's enthusiasm is contagious, but as we all know, none of these vehicles ever made it to dealerships. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. News Source: Chicago Auto Show, Bangshift via YouTube Green GM Toyota Technology Emerging Technologies Electric Hydrogen Cars Videos

Alonso can do full WEC season after date changed to avoid F1 race

McLaren Formula One driver Fernando Alonso can compete for Toyota in every round of the World Endurance Championship this season after organizers moved the Japanese event to avoid a U.S. Grand Prix clash. They announced at a presentation in Paris on Friday that the Six Hours of Fuji had been brought forward to Oct. 14, ensuring that the Spaniard can feature for Toyota at the manufacturer's home track. Alonso wants to win the Le Mans 24 Hours endurance race in France as part of the "triple crown of motorsport" achieved only by the late Briton Graham Hill. Hill, like Alonso a two-times Formula One world champion, won Le Mans, the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500 in the 1960s and early 1970s. Toyota announced last month that Alonso, whose main focus remains Formula One, would be racing all the rounds of the endurance season that did not clash with his McLaren commitments. The Fuji race had originally been pushed back a week to Oct. 21 to avoid a clash with the IMSA Petit Le Mans round at Road Atlanta in the United States. The eight round 2018-19 WEC "super season" includes two editions of Le Mans as a move towards a championship that will start in the European summer and end with the French endurance classic. The top LMP1 category will have 10 cars, with Toyota the only factory team following the departure of reigning champions Porsche. Alonso will share a car with Switzerland's Sebastien Buemi and Japanese Kazuki Nakajima, both former F1 drivers. Reporting by Alan Baldwin Related Video: