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Toyota sells off Tesla shares, too

The incredible rise of Tesla's stock price has done little to now stop two major shareholders from ditching their stake in the American EV manufacturer. First, Daimler, parent company of Mercedes-Benz, ditched its four-percent stake, and less than a week later, Toyota is doing the same thing, selling off an undisclosed bit of its Tesla investment.
The move comes as Toyota winds down sales of the RAV4 EV, which gets its batteries and electric motor from Tesla at the company's Fremont, CA factory.
"We have a good relationship with Tesla, and will evaluate the feasibility of working together on future projects," Toyota spokesperson Kayo Doi told Bloomberg via email.

Toyota R&D shows off free piston engine linear generator for future EVs

We often hear how an electric vehicle powertrain architecture allows vehicle designers much more freedom than a traditional ICE powertrain does. With differently shaped battery modules and small electric motors, there are lots of way to put the pieces together. With today's plug-in hybrid technology, engineers still need to put a decent-sized ICE somewhere, but new technology from Toyota could free up the gas-electric vehicle designers of the future. Presented at the recent SAE World Congress in Detroit, the idea from Toyota Central R&D Labs Inc. and involves what is called a Free Piston Engine Linear Generator (FPEG). Think of it as a sort of one-cylinder, two-stroke mini-engine that can work either as a generator (thank to magnets and a linear coil) or to directly drive a vehicle. The current prototype is a 10-kW unit that Toyota say would provide enough power to get a B- or C-segment electric vehicle up to highway speeds (75 miles per hour) when paired up to offer 20 kW. Pairing the FPEGs is also important to minimize vibrations. One system tested by Toyota had a 42 percent thermal efficiency, but the engineers are working to improve the overall efficiency even further. You can watch an animated video of the piston in action here (click on "Outline") and see the SAE papers here and here. More technical details are available at Green Car Congress. News Source: Toyota Labs via Green Car CongressTip: Thanks, Joe V. Green Misc. Auto Shows Toyota Technology Emerging Technologies Electric generator

Brand new cars are being sold with defective Takata airbags

If you just bought a 2016 Audi TT, 2017 Audi R8, 2016–17 Mitsubishi i-MiEV, or 2016 Volkswagen CC, we have some unsettling news for you. A report provided to a US Senate committee that oversees the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and reported on by Automotive News claims these vehicles were sold with defective Takata airbags. And it gets worse. Toyota and FCA are called out in the report for continuing to build vehicles that will need to be recalled down the line for the same issue. That's not all. The report also states that of the airbags that have been replaced already in the Takata recall campaign, 2.1 million will need to eventually be replaced again. They don't have the drying agent that prevents the degradation of the ammonium nitrate, which can lead to explosions that can destroy the airbag housing and propel metal fragments at occupants. So these airbags are out there already. We're not done yet. There's also a stockpile of about 580,000 airbags waiting to be installed in cars coming in to have their defective airbags replaced. These 580k airbags also don't have the drying agent. They'll need to be replaced down the road, too. A new vehicle with a defective Takata airbag should be safe to drive, but that margin of safety decreases with time. If all this has you spinning around in a frustrated, agitated mess, there's a silver lining that is better than it sounds. So take a breath, run your fingers through your hair, and read on. Our best evidence right now demonstrates that defective Takata airbags – those without the drying agent that prevents humidity from degrading the ammonium nitrate propellant – aren't dangerous yet. It takes a long period of time combined with high humidity for them to reach the point where they can rupture their housing and cause serious injury. It's a matter of years, not days. So a new vehicle with a defective Takata airbag should be safe to drive, but that margin of safety decreases with time – and six years seems to be about as early as the degradation happens in the worst possible scenario. All this is small comfort for the millions of people who just realized their brand-new car has a time bomb installed in the wheel or dashboard, or the owners who waited patiently to have their airbags replaced only to discover that the new airbag is probably defective in the same way (although newer and safer!) as the old one.