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Toyota, Mazda get an Alabama welcome for $1.6 billion plant

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Toyota and Mazda confirmed Wednesday they will build a $1.6 billion joint venture assembly plant in Alabama that will employ up to 4,000 workers, a boost for President Donald Trump who wants automakers to expand U.S. production. Toyota President Akio Toyoda and Mazda President and Chief Executive Officer Masamichi Kogai joined Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey in Montgomery at an event to confirm the decision. "Welcome to sweet home Alabama," Ivey said to the two executives, after saying that the anticipated 4,000 workers at the plant to be built in Huntsville would earn an average of $50,000 a year. The plant will produce 300,000 vehicles a year and should open on a 2,500-acre former cotton field in 2021, about 14 miles from Toyota's engine plant in Huntsville. Toyota plans to build Corolla cars at the plant, while Mazda will build crossover SUVs. "Together, I am confident we will create yet another 'Built in America' success story," Toyoda said. Alabama will provide tax incentives. Officials said the state tax incentives were worth $370 million, but they did not disclose how much the local incentives were worth. Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said the plant will "provide jobs for decades to come for Huntsville and Alabama. It vaults Alabama to the top as an industry leader in producing the next generation of cars that will power our nation." Among U.S. states, Alabama is already the fifth largest producer of cars and light trucks. The state has more than 150 major auto suppliers and 57,000 automotive manufacturing jobs. Two decades ago, Alabama spent an estimated $250 million to woo Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz to put an auto plant in Tuscaloosa, sparking the birth of auto production in the state. In September, Daimler said it would invest $1 billion to expand its Alabama Mercedes-Benz plant to start building electric sport-utility vehicles there from about 2020. Alabama is also home to assembly plants operated by Honda and Hyundai. A Kia assembly plant operates near the Alabama border in Georgia. Mazda and Toyota said they still need approvals and authorization by antitrust agencies for the new joint venture. They announced a capital alliance in August and plans to jointly develop technology for electric vehicles. Trump tweeted in March he wanted "new plants to be built here for cars sold here." Many automakers have announced expansions of facilities or new jobs but no other new U.S. auto plants have been announced. U.S.

Weekly Recap: Toyota wants cars to be your 'close friends' around 2020

Toyota confirmed plans this week to launch autonomous technology in its production cars around 2020. The automaker's version is called Highway Teammate, and it's one element of a broader mobility strategy that includes vehicles communicating with each other and the grid. "Toyota believes that interactions between drivers and cars should mirror those between close friends who share a common purpose, sometimes watching over each other and sometimes helping each other out," the company said in a statement. That sounds utopian, and perhaps a bit cheesy, but it's an acknowledgment that autonomous driving requires more than technology developed in a vacuum. Toyota is looking at its research in a broader context, and dubs its overall strategy the Mobility Teammate Concept. Highway Teammate is the first step. Its test vehicle is a modified Lexus GS, which uses road-mapping data and external sensors to merge or exit highways, change lanes, and maintain safe distances during driving. It's operated on the Shuto Expressway in Tokyo. Toyota has been working on autonomous tech since the 1990s, with the goal of providing mobility for older people and the disabled, as well as lowering the frequency of traffic accidents. Toyota's push comes as an early adopter, Nissan, is hedging on its own deadline to implement the autonomous tech by 2020 due to a lack of firm laws governing self-driving cars around the world. Conversely, Volvo took the landmark step of being the first automaker to accept liability for when its cars will operate in autonomous mode, and urged the US government to set federal guidelines to regulate the technology. OTHER NEWS & NOTES 2016 BMW M4 GTS: Your water-injected, turbo-boosted demon BMW is unleashing its most powerful M4 ever, a 493-horsepower special edition that's road legal yet bred for the track. The company is making 700 copies for sale around the world, and 300 of them will come to the United States. The twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter six-cylinder revs to 7,600 rpm and uses a water-injection technology to cool the intake air and lower the compression temperature. BMW says this allows it to wring more power out of the inline six. The car also uses carbon-fiber reinforced plastic for the roof, hood, engine compartment strut brace, drive shaft, and rear spoiler to reduce weight. The M4 features BMW's organic light-emitting diode taillights, which are said to be an industry first.

Expedition drives from Russia to Canada over North Pole...

No, a Ford Expedition did not drive from Russia to Canada via the North Pole, but that's exactly what a team of intrepid explorers accomplished recently. Using specially-modified buses with massive tires, the group slowly drove 2,485 miles in 70 days over drifting ice, occasionally using a pickaxe to clear a path and staying on guard for chasms that could open up and plunge the team into the frigid arctic waters. Average speeds were about 6 mph, "at the speed of a (farm) tractor." While the big tires technically allowed the buses to float if the need arose, the team preferred to stay out of the water to keep the suspension from getting coated in thick, hard ice. Falling in on foot would mean almost certain death.
According to Phys.org, the buses were powered by Toyota diesel engines, but were built with prototype parts from a previous driving expedition to the North Pole. Right now, the machines are parked in a garage in Canada's Resolute Bay while the the team rests up with family back home. They plan to continue their trek to back across the Bering Straight to Russia. If successful, the team may eventually offer a version of their buses for commercial sale.