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Toyota wants half its vehicles in Japan to be hybrids

The Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle could signal the future of motoring with a somewhat accessible price and cutting-edge green technology, but there's no guarantee for the model actually spearheading a revolution in the marketplace. In the meantime, the Japanese brand is continuing to focus on its hybrid powertrains and actually plans to build even more of them. As soon as next year, half of Toyota's sales in Japan could be electrically assisted. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, Toyota is pushing to sell 760,000 hybrids in Japan in 2016, compared to 684,000 last year. That figure would account for half of the company's sales in that country, and the company plans to increase overall production of its gas-electric models. The automaker could build 1.32 million of them next year, which would be about 30 percent more than in 2014. There's actually a financial incentive for Toyota to try this green strategy. Japan's rules for tax breaks on efficient models are about to get more stringent. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, only about half of all new models are expected to meet the guidelines for the incentives, compared to over 80 percent now, and the change could cost buyers as much as 100,000 yen ($840) more. With the impending debut of the next-gen Prius and heightened hybrid production, Toyota can position itself as an attractive choice to customers. News Source: Nikkei Asian Review via Green Car CongressImage Credit: Kazuhiro Nogi / AFP / Getty Images Green Plants/Manufacturing Toyota Hybrid

Toyota Supra ready for its retrospective video closeup

Our friends at XCAR have taken the time to train their lenses on the iconic Toyota Supra. With Toyota finally back into the performance car game, it seems only logical to remember one of the brand's most legendary sports cars. While we're all busy ladling praise onto the Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ twins, it's important to remember that Toyota used to produce all manner of fun-to-drive machinery. The Supra once sat at the top of that list, its most recent iteration giving buyers the option of a ludicrous forced-induction inline six, gorgeous styling and plenty of presence.
Of course, the legend didn't stop once the Supra fell off American order sheets in 1998. Always an aftermarket darling, the Supra has gone on to become a tuner favorite in nearly every corner of grassroots motorsport. From drag racing to road racing and everywhere in between, the Supra is remains a force to be reckoned with nearly 15 years after it last prowled the US auto market. You can catch the tribute from XCAR below.

Hello, Siri? Please don't crash the car

Hands on the wheel and eyes on the road? You could still be distracted while driving. Voice-recognition software that many automakers tout as a safer alternative to handheld devices can still divert drivers' attention, a new study published by AAA found. Researchers noted that workload ratings were the highest on their scales when participants in the study used Siri. The technology is alluring because it allows drivers to do things like change the radio station or compose a text message without removing their hands from the wheel or their gaze from the road. But many of those tasks increase a driver's cognitive workload. Depending on the situation, that can be dangerous. "It's especially problematic, because you can be distracted and not know it," J. Peter Kissinger, president of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, told Autoblog. "That's the nature of mental distraction. It's hard to appreciate. ... Often, you don't know you're distracted until it's too late." There's significant variation in the results of the study. Simple, single-task car commands for operations like changing the radio station caused minimal increases in workload, about the same as listening to an audio book. Composing information using speech-to-text technology was more burdensome, and using menu-based functions caused a high level of cognitive workload. Siri-based interactions posed the highest levels of distraction, according to AAA. Researchers noted that workload ratings were the highest on their scales when participants in the study used Siri, and two of the three simulator crashes they observed during the study of 36 participants came while the subjects were interacting with Siri. The subjects weren't looking at nor making contact with their iPhones during these interactions. "Common issues involved inconsistencies in which Siri would produce different responses to seemingly identical commands," the researchers wrote. "In other circumstances, Siri required exact phrases to accomplish specific tasks and subtle deviations from that phrasing would result in a failure. ... Some participants also reported frustration with Siri's occasional sarcasm and wit." It wasn't just the complexity of the task that caused variations in level of distraction – the variations could also be dependent on the particular make and model of the car being tested.