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Toyota Auris gets new Touring Sports variant

Toyota showed off the Touring Sports version of the Auris next to the newly introduced Auris Hybrid at last year's Paris Motor Show, but didn't say much about it. Six months later, just ahead of the Geneva Motor Show, the company is crowing about that wagon going on sale with the Hybrid Synergy Drive, creating the Auris Touring Sports Hybrid.
The hauling version of the exceptionally popular Auris hatchback doesn't just add a hybrid wagon to the compact segment, Toyota says it offers class-leading load capacity of 1,658 liters with the Easy-Flat one-touch rear seats down. With the rear seats up, it offers 530 liters. The little big gulp is possible because the hybrid batteries have been placed under the rear seats instead of being in the luggage area.
It looks the same as the hatchback save for the fact that it's 285 millimeters (11.2 inches) longer behind the C pillar, has a redesigned tailgate and a lower load floor. Engines beyond the hybrid will match the rest of the lineup: 1.3-liter and 1.6-liter gasoline engines and a 1.4-liter D-4D diesel. There's a chance we'll see it in Geneva, if we don't there's a press release below to tell you all about it.

White House clears way for NHTSA to mandate vehicle black boxes

At present, over 90 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States today are equipped with event data recorders, more commonly known as black boxes. If the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gets its way, that already high figure will swell to a full 100 percent in short order.
Such automotive black boxes have been in existence since the 1990s, and all current Ford, General Motors, Mazda and Toyota vehicles are so equipped. NHTSA has been attempting to make these data recorders mandatory for automakers, and according to The Detroit News, the White House Office of Management Budget has just finished reviewing the proposal, clearing the way. Now NHTSA is expected to draft new legislation to make the boxes a requirement.
One problem with current black boxes is that there's no set of standards for automakers to follow when creating what bits of data are recorded, and for how long or in what format it is stored. In other words, one automaker's box is probably not compatible with its competitors.

Does Scion's LA concept presage a US Auris?

When the doors open at the LA Auto Show in a few weeks, Scion will be on hand to showcase its new iM Concept. But considering what little Toyota's youthful brand has revealed about the concept so far, it's led to rampant speculation. And the prevailing wisdom seems to point towards a production iM arriving as a Scion-badged version of the Toyota Auris.
For those unfamiliar, the Auris is to European (and other) markets essentially what the Matrix is (was?) to ours: a hatchback version of the Corolla. The model line was first introduced in 2006, looking in its first iteration like an overgrown version of the contemporary second-gen Yaris, and was replaced with the current model in 2012. It's available as a five-door hatch or wagon, with a range of gasoline, diesel and hybrid powertrains available.
If the rumors - spurred by the similarity of the iM concept's nose depicted in the teasers - prove accurate, and public reception to the idea ends up spurring Toyota to put it into action, it wouldn't be the first overseas Toyota brought over as a Scion. The Scion iQ was sold as the Toyota iQ overseas years before it arrived here.