Pristine 2005 Lexus Sc 430 Very Low Miles 8100 on 2040-cars

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Toyota projecting record profits, thanks in part to weak yen

Toyota retained its global sales crown in 2014 by selling 10.23 million cars in the calendar year. As the positive number might suggest, the Japanese automaker is doing extremely well financially, too. Although, some tougher times might be on the horizon. Toyota recently released its financial figures for the three fiscal quarters running from April 1 through the end of December 2014. Net profit jumped an impressive 13.2 percent to 1.727 trillion yen ($14.7 billion) for that period. It could be the Japanese automaker's most profitable time ever when the fiscal year ends in March, if things keep going this way, according to The New York Times. Toyota's own profit forecast for the 12-month period is also up by 130 billion yen ($1.1 billion) to 2.13 trillion yen ($18.1 billion). One key to the company's success is the low value of the Japanese yen, because it allows Toyota to make more money on each vehicle the company sells abroad. The currency is now worth relatively less than any time since the early '70s, according to The New York Times. Despite the rosy financial numbers, actual sales have started to fall, albeit a very slight amount. Through the three fiscal quarters, the company sold 6.73 million cars, a drop of just 45,365 vehicles. Toyota also reduced its forecast for the fiscal year to 9 million units, rather than the original estimate of 9.05 million. According to The New York Times, the shrinking Japanese auto market and difficulty in China might mean losing the global sales lead next year. For the US, sales jumped 145,411 units from April through December to a total 2.1 million vehicles. Operating income reached $4.27 billion, nearly 50 percent more than last year, according to The New York Times. Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) Announces April – December 2014 Financial Results February 04, 2015 Toyota's global net income jumped 13.2 percent during the nine-month period (April 1– December 31, 2014) of the 2015 fiscal year. Global Financial Highlights: Global sales decreased by 45,365 vehicles to 6.73 million, with strong sales in North America and gains in Europe, offsetting decreases in Japan and other regions.

Bosch builds an infotainment system that just might not suck

As far as we've come with in-car infotainment and interfaces over the past decade or so, we still have a long way to go — as most current systems show. Whether it's high-end brands like Mercedes-Benz with its kludgy COMAND system, which we hope will be replaced with the MBUX platform revealed at CES, or more mainstream vehicles like Hondas (with their frustrating, knobless Display Audio interface), getting the kind of content and ease of use in the car that we're used to having on other connected devices is far too complex and sometimes costly. While Apple and Google have tried to ride to the rescue with CarPlay and Android Auto, respectively, they're limited solutions. No automaker or tech supplier has been able to deliver an easy, economical, flexible and non-distracting infotainment solution. But Bosch could be closing in on this elusive goal, given the digital cockpit concept demo I recently received at CES. Displayed in a Cadillac Escalade, the concept featured five interconnected color screens: one in the instrument cluster, two in the center console, and two more in the front-seat headrest for second-row passengers. The digital cockpit concept demo had cool features such as haptic-feedback touch-screen controls that created an edge-like feeling similar to a physical button, facial recognition to confirm driver credentials, and the intelligence to know the location of a phone in the car to lock it out to keep the driver from texting. The most significant aspect of the Bosch digital cockpit concept wasn't visible — but shows the company's vision for a future of seamless, convenient, cost-effective and safe in-car infotainment. It's powered by a single electronic control unit (ECU) that can simultaneously run multiple operating systems and also separates vehicle and infotainment controls for critical safety and cybersecurity reasons. Most modern cars can have as many as 100 separate ECUs, Philip Ventimiglia, product manager for Bosch Car Multimedia North America, explained at CES, and several just for infotainment functions. "The goal is to reduce that to about 10 so that we can save cost throughout the vehicle and enable new technologies," he added. "OEMs want to put more technology into cars, but it costs money," Ventimiglia said.

Lexus gets top brand marks from Consumer Reports; Ford, Jeep hit hard

Consumer Reports has released its 2014 Car Brand Report Cards, with Lexus again reigning at the top and doing so with the same industry-topping score of 79 that it registered in last year's Report Cards. This year, the institute credited its lineup for being "usually quiet, comfortable, and fuel-efficient," noting it's the only brand on the list "to achieve an excellent average overall reliability score." The Car Brand Report Cars list is meant to rank the best all-around vehicles based on CR testing and reliability results tallied by subscribers it surveyed. Each brand included must have sufficient test and reliability data for at least three models, a standard which left out 11 marques including Fiat, Jaguar, Land Rover and Porsche.
This 2014 Brand Report Cars edition is the first of a new format in which sub-brands have been broken out from their parent brands, with Acura using this year to move up the leaderboard into second place with a score of 75 for its "reliable, well-finished and somewhat sporty models." The top three was rounded out by Audi, climbing from eighth to third by scoring a 74 for "well-crafted interiors, nice handling and good gas mileage." Audi scored highest in the road-test portion, its improved reliability aiding its rise. The top nine was completed by Subaru, Toyota, Mazda, Honda, Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz.
Ford and Jeep weighed in at the other end of the rankings, Jeep taking the lowest overall score in the road tests and hampered by "a mix of spotty reliability." Ford was sunk by reliability issues with its MyFord Touch infotainment system which consumers found troublesome enough to negate its cars earning "solid test scores" for being "very nice to drive." Perhaps the rumored switch from Microsoft to Blackberry's QNX for the next generation SYNC will help them out. Cadillac's score also took a hit for infotainment reasons after it was the leading US brand last year, the CUE system in the XTS dragging Cadillac to the bottom of all General Motors brands.