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Toyota FCV puts hydrogen fuel cell twist on ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

You've probably seen your fair share of Ice Bucket Challenge videos online this week, which are meant to raise money to fight amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often called "Lou Gehrig's Disease." Hopefully, you've seen ours. We've watched a lot of these videos, but haven't seen one that makes an alt-fuel point quite like a new video from Toyota. Julie Hamp, the CCO of Toyota North America, lost a sister-in-law to ALS last year, so for her the cause is personal. Instead of just dumping icy-cold water on her head, Hamp uses water from the FCV fuel cell vehicle parked next to her. Because, of course, a hydrogen fuel cell car emits nothing but water vapor. Toyota didn't run a lot of hydrogen through the car to collect water, it just got enough to top off the ice bucket. Using the water emissions from a hydrogen vehicle in a creative way is not a new trick. Two years ago, the California Fuel Cell Partnership made the point that you can drink the emissions (just like Mercedes-Benz did earlier this year), but admitted that "fuel cells produce about the same amount of water as gasoline vehicle – about 1/3 cup for a full day of driving." Still, for a good cause, we'll accept the mix of tap water and "emissions." Check out the video below, if you haven't had enough already. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Toyota investing $200M in Southern manufacturing

Over the past two years, Toyota has invested more than $2 billion at its North American production facilities, and it apparently doesn't plan on stopping there. To keep up with recent strong sales, Toyota is investing an additional $200 million at its engine plants in the Southern US to increase production capacity of its V6 engines.
The bulk of this money ($150 million) will go to expand Toyota's engine plant in Huntsville, AL, which is currently responsible for supplying engines - four-cylinder, V6 and V8 - to eight of Toyota's 12 domestically produced vehicles. That includes the best-selling Toyota Camry (shown above).
Toyota didn't say exactly what improvements are being made to the plant, but this follows last year's $80 million investment in the plant that is set to be completed by next year raising the engine capacity to 750,000 annual units including 362,000 V6s. The remaining $50 million will go to the casting plants of Toyota-owned Bodine Aluminum in Missouri and Tennessee, which supply engine blocks and cylinder heads to the Huntsville engine plant as well as others in Kentucky and West Virginia. Scroll down below for the official press release.

Toyota begins shipping Le Yaris to America

Our tiniest Toyota (Scion iQ notwithstanding) is about to get a little French flair. The Japanese automaker announced Thursday that its Toyota Motor Manufacturing France facility would begin building Yaris models destined for North America - specifically, the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. This will mark the first time in history that Toyota has exported vehicles to North America from Europe.
Initially, Toyota will export roughly 25,000 Yaris models to North American markets from France each year. In order to handle this additional production, Toyota Motor Manufacturing France has invested 10 million euro into its French facility.
Despite being somewhat of a snooze-fest (it's a car!), the Yaris carries on in North America with a 106-horsepower 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine, with prices starting at $14,370 for the three-door and $15,395 for the five-door, not including $795 for destination.