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Toyota's car subscription service rewards you for safe driving

Toyota has teamed up with Sumitomo Mitsui Auto Service Company to launch a new car subscription service with gamification elements in Japan. The program is called Kinto, and it'll offer two tiers: the first, called Kinto One, will allow you to drive one Toyota vehicle over a three-year period for anywhere between $420 and $900 a month. When the tier becomes available on March 1st, you can choose from the available Prius, Corolla Sport, Alphard, Vellfire and Crown models. The other tier called Kinto Select will give you the power to drive one of the available Lexus-branded vehicles for $1,630 a month for three years. Now, what truly makes Kinto potentially more interesting than other leasing services is a rewards program that awards points based on how well you drive. Toyota didn't really expound on how it will work, other than saying that it will "award points to customers based on their vehicle usage (such as for safe or ecological driving)." As TechCrunch notes, the assumption is that the vehicle's in-car connected system will come with the ability to monitor your driving. Best thing about it is that the points you earn aren't useless rewards you can't even use: you'll be able to apply them toward payments. Kinto's Select option will be available starting on February 6th, almost a full month before the more affordable Kinto One launches. Both will be available via select dealers in Tokyo on a trial basis, and they won't officially roll out across Japan until summer. The points program won't be available until fall, when Kinto One's options will also expand. Unfortunately, there's no word on whether Kinto will eventually roll out in the US and other markets outside Toyota's home nation.For more information on Vehicle Subscription Services, check out the Complete Guide.Reporting by Mariella Moon for Engadget.Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

New drifting world record set in Toyota GT86

We have entered a drifting arms race. Last year, BMW smashed the Guinness World Record for the longest drift by hanging the tail out for 51.3 miles around a wet skid pad in an M5 at the BMW Performance Driving School in South Carolina. That beat the previous milestone of nearly seven miles. Now, Bimmer's record is up in smoke as well and is in the possession of a Toyota.
German driver Harald Müller pummeled the old record to drift for 89.55 miles around a 0.15-mile (235.5-meter) course in Samsun, Turkey, in a Toyota GT86 (or Scion FR-S as it's known in the US). According to the Guinness World Records website, it took him 612 laps and 2 hours, 25 minutes and 18 seconds to manage the achievement. Sit back to watch a few minutes of the German's two and a half hours behind the wheel with the tail out.

Jim Lentz exposes more details behind Toyota's move to Texas

Toyota's North American CEO Jim Lentz has already given us a rough idea of what prompted the company's surprise move to the Dallas suburb of Plano, TX from its longstanding headquarters in Torrance, CA. A new story from The Los Angeles Times, though, delivers even more detail from Lentz on the reasoning for the move, what other cities were considered and why the company's current host city wasn't even in the running.
Of course, one of the more popular reasons being bandied about includes the $40 million Texas was set to give the company for the move, as well as the state's generous tax rates. According to Lentz, though, the reason Toyota chose Plano over a group of finalists made up of Atlanta, Charlotte and Denver, was far simpler than that - it was about consolidating its marketing, sales, engineering and production teams in a region that's closer to the company's seat of manufacturing in the south.
"It doesn't make sense to have oversight of manufacturing 2,000 miles away from where the cars were made," Lentz told The Times. "Geography is the reason not to have our headquarters in California."