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Toyota Camry Hybrid SE adds a dash of limited-edition sport

For drivers who want to benefit from the increased efficiency of a hybrid sedan but who don't want to look like they'd rather be hugging trees, Toyota has just announced its 2014.5 Camry Hybrid SE Limited Edition.
The SE LTD combines the exterior bits and pieces that make the SE look sportier than other Camry models with the 2.5-liter, four-cylinder engine, electric motor and nickel metal hydride battery pack of the Camry Hybrid. That means the Hybrid SE offers up 200 combined system horsepower to the front wheels, and we'd expect it to be rated at the same 40 miles per gallon city and 38 highway of the Camry XLE Hybrid.
Only 5,000 units will be produced between February and June of 2014, with an asking price of $27,845, which is about $700 more expensive than the base Camry Hybrid LE or $2,620 less than the Hybrid XLE that Toyota says shares a similar level of equipment. Sounds like a fair shake to us. Scroll down below for the complete press release.

Toyota's 'Fueled by Oil Creek' gases up hydrogen's history

Hey, Toyota. We got a question for you. If you're using a small Pennsylvania town to highlight the technological and ecological advances of the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle, why are those vehicles going to be sold only in California this fall? The Japanese automaker has released an online documentary video (the second in a series) showing what advantages hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles have over gas-powered vehicles, and uses Titusville, PA, as a backdrop. Some students from that town, which was an oil boomtown in the 19th century, take water from that town's Oil Creek (ah, symbolic), uses electrolysis to split that water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, then shows how the resulting hydrogen can power a Toyota Mirai for as far as 300 miles. Fueled by Oil Creek runs about five minutes. Toyota debuted sales of the Mirai last year in Japan and will start selling the car in California in October. The model will be priced at $57,500 and will be offered with a three-year lease option of $499 a month (with $3,649 due at signing). Toyota also said earlier this year that it would spend about $170 million upping production capacity for the Mirai. Take a look at Toyota's press below and watch the video above. Petroleum Past Helps Fuel Hydrogen Future Water from Pennsylvania's Oil Creek Becomes Hydrogen Fuel for Mirai Second Video in Toyota's "Fueled by Everything" Series June 03, 2015 TORRANCE, Calif. (June 3, 2015) – A creek, a little high school chemistry, and a former oil boom town open to a hydrogen-fueled future. This is the story of "Fueled by Oil Creek," the second online video in Toyota's multi-part "Fueled by Everything" series aimed at highlighting renewable sources of hydrogen fuel, leading up to launch of the 2016 Toyota Mirai. Directed by Oscar-winning documentary filmmakers T.J. Martin and Dan Lindsay, the 5-minute video takes viewers to Titusville, Pennsylvania where, in 1859, an oil well changed the American energy landscape. Flash forward to 2015. Local high school students in the film collect water from the aptly named Oil Creek for a lesson in electrolysis, separating water into oxygen and hydrogen gas using an electric current. The resulting hydrogen gas powers the hydrogen fuel cell electric Toyota Mirai to travel up to 300 miles on a full tank. The only tailpipe emission is water, just like the fuel source.

Toyota promoting Mirai as if hydrogen tax credit never went away

At the end of December, the US federal government let the $8,000 tax credit for hydrogen-powered vehicles expire. Despite this little wrinkle, Toyota is still promoting the upcoming 2016 Mirai fuel cell vehicle as a car that will cost under $50,000. In some cases a lot less, since it may also qualify for a $5,000 incentive in California. The car has a $57,500 MSRP, but Nihar Patel, vice president of North American Business Strategy for Toyota Motor Sales, spoke at the 2015 Washington Auto Show last week, and said that the Mirai could cost $44,500 in California. You can see this in the video at around minute four. Toyota knows that the federal incentives have expired, since the real news from the show was Patel's public request to the federal government that the $8,000 tax credit be extended. "We think that the federal credit expiration last year puts [hydrogen] customers in a fairly disadvantageous postion," he said. Plug-in vehicle buyers can still get up to $7,500 tax credit and, "we believe that this inequity needs to be fixed," he said. You can see this in the video at minute 10:20. Toyota said including both the after-incentives price and the call to reinstate those incentives was intentional since it shows a discrepancy between hydrogen and plug-in vehicles in the eyes of the feds. We asked Toyota's director of Energy and Environmental Research, Technical and Regulatory Affairs, Robert Wimmer, for more details on Toyota's request. "[The Mirai] being a ZEV and battery electrics also being ZEVs, we just want to make the playing field as level as possible," he said, adding that any extension would last "for the run of the vehicle," which would be three years. He admitted that the extension might only be for one or two years, if it happens at all. (A Toyota spokesperson clarified to AutoblogGreen that the Mirai program will not end after three years.) And that's the problem. "The tax process is difficult to predict," he said. "The two challenges we have now are that both houses of Congress are Republican and also that there has been talk for a while about comprehensive tax reform. If that moves forward, then extenders would probably be put on the back burner as comprehensive tax reform is discussed." Wimmer would not reveal any details about how Toyota is pressuring the government to act, only saying that Toyota's has people lobbying up on Capitol Hill.