Auto blog

Toyota GT86 engineer Tada recounts how sports car came to be

Because the Toyota GT86, Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ coupes are now a reality, it's almost hard to imagine the struggle that had to happen within the large, conservative corporate structures at both automakers for the joint project to even get off of the ground.
Speaking to those struggles on Toyota UK's Toyota Blog, GT86 Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada enlightens us with a recap of the sports car's earliest origins. For Tada, the first stages of the project must have seemed almost as dreamlike as the final product is to drive.
Said the Chief, "I had been working in the minivan department engineering new product, but a month after the meeting I was summoned. 'Forget about minivans,' they said, 'you are now working on the sports-car project.'"

Recharge Wrap-up: Q50 Hybrid video, Iran's biodiesel weed

A new video from Infiniti showcases the Q50 Hybrid's kinetic energy recovery technology, borrowed from Formula One. The video details what is going on inside both the Q50 Hybrid and the racecar when it gathers energy to store for later use, offering better performance than an internal combustion engine alone. In the Q50 Hybrid, that electric energy helps the car accelerate from 0-60 in 4.9 seconds. The video also serves to highlight the relationship between racing innovation and performance and efficiency improvements in production vehicles. See the video above. The 2015 Toyota Prius C has been named a Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The compact hybrid, updated for the 2015 model year, has been upgraded from a "poor" to "acceptable" rating in the small overlap crash test, placing it on the Top Safety Pick list. Beginning in the 2016 model year, cars will have to score a "good" rating on the test to make the list, which means further improvements will be necessary if Toyota wants the Prius C to maintain its safety status with the IIHS. Read more at Green Car Reports. A couple in Tennessee have been found guilty of scamming the state in a fake biodiesel scheme. John and Lisa Brichetto's Northington Energy LLC received a state loan to produce biodiesel in 2011, but the facility never started production and was later foreclosed upon. In addition to the $142,215 the Brichettos defrauded from Tennessee, the state also invested in utilities and roads, while the US Department of Agriculture also paid for site improvements. Read more from the Times Free Press. Researchers in Iran have developed a way to make biodiesel from a weed. Scientists at the Islamic Azad University have created two liters of biomass for biofuel from flixweed. Flixweed, also called herb-Sophia and tansy mustard, is a non-edible weed that grows in various climates with little to no effort. It was found to contain 22 percent oil and fatty acids, and the biomass contains oxygenated chemical components. "This issue is important because the atomic oxygen in the fuel of a car directly cuts exhaust and the dangerous carbon monoxide and cancerous particles suspended in air," says Mehdi Alami, a chemistry graduate working on the project. Read more at Press TV.

Sunday Drive: Subaru Ascends up to the hottest market segment in America

Utility vehicles – in other words, crossovers and SUVs – are so hot right now. Two of our top stories from last week revolve around the utilitarian vehicle, but besides their jacked-up, five-door bodystyles, they couldn't be more different. The 2019 Subaru Ascent is headed into an extremely crowded and competitive segment, where it'll have to go up against industry stalwarts like the Toyota Highlander and Honda Pilot, not to mention upstart contenders like the Volkswagen Atlas. The Mercedes-AMG G63, on the other hand, has very little competition – there simply aren't very many ultra-luxurious, off-road-ready SUVs in the world vying to attract the dollars of the wellest-to-do customers across these United States. Moving on from crossovers and SUVs, our readers remain attracted to classic front-engine, rear-wheel-drive sportscars. The Toyota Supra's upcoming rebirth earns two places on our list of stories worth highlighting from the week that was; one with leaked information from a Japanese magazine, and another with rumors indicating that maybe we shouldn't be quite so excited. And finally, there's the strange case of the long-lost 2009 Chevy Corvette Z06 that one lucky individual happened to find squirreled away in a storage container with just 720 original miles. A high-horsepower head scratcher if we've ever seen one. As always, stay tuned to Autoblog this week for all the latest automotive news that's fit to print. 2019 Subaru Ascent vs Honda Pilot vs Toyota Highlander: How they compare on paper 2019 Mercedes-AMG G63 set to bare its 577-horsepower heart in Geneva Toyota Supra leaks in Japanese magazine ahead of Geneva debut Toyota Supra to be little more than a rebodied BMW Z4? Forgotten 720-mile 2009 Corvette Z06 emerges from storage Chevrolet Mercedes-Benz Subaru Toyota Coupe Crossover SUV Luxury Off-Road Vehicles Performance barn find sunday drive subaru ascent mercedes-amg g63