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Toyota, Mazda drop Takata as Mitsubishi, Subaru weigh options

It's not a very good time to be Takata right now. Fresh on the heels of longtime partner Honda ditching them, Toyota and Mazda have both come out and said they will not use the company's airbag inflators if they continue to rely on ammonium nitrate. Bloomberg reports that Subaru and Mitsubishi are also contemplating a divorce. "The inflator using ammonium nitrate produced by Takata will not be adopted by Toyota," President Akio Toyoda said during a briefing today. "What's most important above anything else is the safety and peace of mind of customers." Mazda echoed that position, simply saying it "will not use Takata airbag inflators which contain ammonium nitrate in our new cars." When you lose three huge OEM accounts in as many days, it's certainly going to have a deleterious effect on your fortunes. In Takata's case, that's meant a staggering 39-percent drop in their share price over the last three days. Yesterday alone, the company saw a 6.2-percent fall, Bloomberg reports. As the business publication reports, though, Takata isn't going down without a fight. The company is "considering some plans to survive," including a fundraising plan that will see it potentially offer up additional shares for sale. Still, at least one analyst doesn't see whatever company survives staying involved in the airbag inflator business. "I really don't see how they're going to be able to survive as an inflator manufacturer," Valient Market Research founder Scott Upham told Bloomberg. "When your major clients publicly come out and say that they're not going to use your products anymore, it makes this very difficult to sustain your business." News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: Carlos Osorio / AP Honda Mazda Mitsubishi Subaru Toyota Safety supplier

Tokyo wants 6k fuel-cell cars from Toyota and Honda for 2020 Olympics

Japan aims to have greener cars on its roads in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and the city government there is putting some serious money on the table to make sure that the transformation happens in time. The push could jump start sales of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs) in the metropolis and would portray the Asian country as a leader in the cutting-edge tech. The city is setting aside 45.2 billion yen ($385 million) to offer subsidies for people buying FCEVs and to build 35 hydrogen refueling stations to keep them going, according to Bloomberg. The local government is in talks with Toyota and Honda to have 6,000 fuel cell vehicles on the road in time for the games. These generally expensive factors are often considered some of the biggest hurdles for the alternative fuel to take hold. Beyond the 2020 games, the Tokyo government has even more aggressive plans for the alternative fuel. The city's audacious goal is to have 100,000 FCEVs, 100 hydrogen-fueled buses and 80 refueling stations in the capital by 2025, according to Bloomberg. The city wants to offer FCEV buyers incentives as much as about 3 million yen ($25,325) with a third of that money coming from the Tokyo government and the rest from the national government, according to Bloomberg. Furthermore, subsides on building refueling stations could be as high as 80 percent in Tokyo, which puts costs more in line with building a traditional gas station. It appears that the demand is already building to make Tokyo's goal a reality. Toyota has received around 1,500 orders for the Mirai, according to Bloomberg. Although, the majority have come from the country's government or fleets. To meet the higher-than-expected demand, the automaker expanded its production facilities by adding two more assembly lines. The launch of Honda's latest FCEV was recently pushed back until March 2016, a year later than originally expected. Related Video: News Source: BloombergImage Credit: Shizuo Kambayashi / AP Photo Government/Legal Green Toyota Car Buying Alternative Fuels Emissions Green Driving Technology Emerging Technologies Hydrogen Cars Sedan toyota mirai tokyo olympics

FIA introduces 'Hypercar Concept' for World Endurance Championship

One of the most common jabs at hypercars is the question, "Where can you drive them to their potential?" Imagine the answer being: to the checkered flag in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. We're not there yet, but the FIA World Motor Sport Council took a step closer to the possibility during its second annual meeting in Manila, the Philippines. One of three initiatives the WSMC announced for the 2020 World Endurance Championship was "Freedom of design for brands based on a 'Hypercar' concept." This "Hypercar concept" would replace LMP1 as the premier class in the WEC. The dream, of course, would be seeing racing versions of the AMG Project One, Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro, Bugatti Chiron, Koenigsegg Regera, McLaren Senna GTR, Pagani Huara BC, and the rest of the gang trading paint and carbon fiber through Dunlop in a heinously expensive version of "Buy on Sunday, sell on Monday." The reality is that we don't have all the details yet on the set of regulations called "GTP," but the FIA wants race cars more closely tied to road cars, albeit with the performance level of today's LMP1 cars. Exterior design freedom would shelter internals designed to reduce costs, the FIA planning to mandate less complex hybrid systems and allow the purchase of spec systems. One of the FIA's primary goals is lowering LMP1 budgets to a quarter of their present levels. Audi and Porsche budgets exceeded $200 million, while Toyota - the only factory LMP1 entry this year and next - is assumed to have a budget hovering around $100 million. Reports indicated that Aston Martin, Ferrari, Ford, McLaren, and Toyota sat in on the development of the proposed class. If the FIA can get costs down to around $25 million, that would compare running a top IndyCar team and have to be hugely appealing to the assembled carmakers. The initiative represents another cycle of the roughly once-a-decade reboot of sports car racing to counter power or cost concerns. The FIA shut down Group 5 Special Production Sports Car class in 1982 to halt worrying power hikes, and introduced Group C. In 1993, Group C came to an ignoble end over costs; manufacturers were spending $15 million on a season, back when that was real money and not one-fifth of a Ferrari 250 GTO. Then came the BPR Global GT Series that morphed into the FIA GT Championship, which would see the last not-really-a-road car take overall Le Mans victory in 1998, the Porsche 911 GT1. That era would be most aligned with a future hypercar class.