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Toyota raises Japanese base wages for first time since 2008

Toyota is on track for record profits, and in return, its Japanese workers are receiving their first increase in base wages since 2008, plus higher pay based on seniority and a larger bonus for 2014. The Japanese automaker predicts the average laborer will net a 2.9 percent income gain.
The average Toyota employee will earn 2,700 yen ($26.28) more each month, a 0.8 percent increase from last year. Workers will also receive about 7,300 yen ($71.09) more monthly based on seniority and promotions. Finally, the company's union pushed through a median bonus of 2.44 million yen ($23,768) for 2014, the highest in 6 years.
The pay boost comes as Toyota forecasts a record 1.9-trillion yen ($18.5 billion) profit for the fiscal year ending on March 31, according to Bloomberg. It has been helped by the Japanese government's efforts to weaken the yen on international markets and expand inflation. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been asking businesses to increase compensation to end years of deflation and offset upcoming higher sales taxes. Honda and Nissan have also raised their wages there in recent months.

Watch a Toyota Highlander ram a house, twice

Toyota has had plenty of problems in recent years due to claims of unintended acceleration, and now here's a video that actually catches such a claim on video. The driver of this 2010-2013 Toyota Highlander claims that the crossover's accelerator got stuck causing the vehicle to slam into the house twice, and resulting in damage to the Highlander, the house and two vehicles inside the garage. While we don't know when this accident took place, the video was uploaded to YouTube back in January.
It is impossible to determine what actually happened in this video, but what we do know is that a security camera captures the Highlander slowly pulling into the driveway before it lunges forward slamming into the garage. With the tires squealing and metal crunching, the driver then shifts between reverse and drive a couple times causing even more property damage before spinning out in the street and finally being able to shift into Park. Scroll down to see the video for yourself. Whether unintended acceleration or driver error, this was undoubtedly a harrowing ordeal.

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.