2006 Toyota Tacoma Base Crew Cab Pickup 4-door 4.0l on 2040-cars

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Toyota's 'Easy Speak' Gives Parents A Voice In Backseats

Parents often wish they could be in two places at once. A feature from Toyota now gives them the next best thing: The ability to yell at their children from a distance. The feature, known as Easy Speak, was introduced in the 2014 Highlander and can now be had in Toyota's Sienna minivan. It allows drivers to use a microphone to communicate with passengers via the car's speakers, all while keeping their eyes on the road. This can come in handy when your brood starts their territorial shoving matches. There's also an optional two way conversation mirror, which allows parents to keep check in on the action without having to turn their head around. These are welcome features. A three-week study from the Monash University Accident Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia showed that children – not telephones – are more likely to distract people while driving. Parents were distracted on 90 of 92 trips studied by the researchers, racking up an average of three minutes of distracted driving per 16 minute trip. Cell phones only made up one percent of that distracted drive time. Related Gallery Coolest minivans of all time Weird Car News Toyota Minivan/Van

Toyota FCV rallies to the hydrogen cause as zero car

It's been two decades since Toyota dominated the World Rally Championship with its Celica Turbo 4WD. But this past weekend, Toyota hit the rally stage in a very different vehicle.
That, as you can see, is the Japanese automaker's Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV), which is still in its prototype phase. We're still at least half a year away from seeing the FCV in production trim, but the model has already been pressed into duty as the "zero car" at the Shinshiro Rally, the last round of the Japanese Rally Championship.
The zero car, for those unfamiliar, is to rally what a pace or safety car is to circuit racing, driving the rally stage to check for signs of trouble before the competitors put their feet to the floor, so it's not as if the FCV needed extensive modifications. From the looks of things, it just needed some jazzy stripes, mud flaps, probably different rolling stock and an interior with racing buckets and harnesses, roll cage, radio equipment and maybe a bit more ground clearance.

Toyota's HaMo urban mobility carsharing program comes to France

We're guessing no one's nuts enough to try to take one of Toyota's three-wheeled leaning electric i-Road vehicles up into the French Alps. Still, the town of Grenoble, France, which sits at the foot of the mountains, has received 35 of those vehicles as part of a carsharing pilot program. Toyota's thrown in 35 four-wheel Auto Body COMS vehicles into the program as well. Grenoble, which is about 200 miles north of Marseille, was presumably chosen because of existing carsharing programs run by Cite-lib. This program, dubbed "Cite lib by Ha:mo," goes a little more futuristic, though, as it's part of what Toyota calls its "Ha:mo" plan (Ha:mo is short for "harmonious mobility"). The program will run for three years and includes 27 charging stations near bus lines and train stations. The public will be charged anywhere from three to 19 euros ($3.80 to $24.50 US) to use the vehicles for between 15 minutes and four hours. The good news is that drivers can pick up the vehicles in one location and drop them off in another. Toyota started testing the i-Road vehicles in Toyota City, Japan, this past March. The trike is about three feet wide and has a top speed of 28 miles per hour. Check out Toyota's press release below and read AutoblogGreen's "First Drive" impressions of the i-Road here. "Cite lib by Ha:mo", a New Type of Urban Mobility Based on Ultra-Compact Electric Vehicles Connected to Public Transport, Launches in Grenoble, France This innovative car-sharing service aims to prepare the City and agglomeration of Grenoble for electric mobility within a comprehensive multi-modal mobility plan. The three-year trial project brings together the competencies and services of five partners: the City of Grenoble, the Metro Area, French electricity company EDF and its affiliate Sodetrel, Toyota, and Cite lib, the local car-sharing operator. 35 three-wheel Toyota i-ROAD and 35 four-wheel Toyota Auto Body COMS will be available for short city trips in 27 charging stations installed and operated by Sodetrel - including for one-way trips from one station to another. A total of 120 charging points for the project and 41 for other plug-in vehicles will be added to the city's transport infrastructure. A simple pricing plan dubbed "3, 2, 1 euros" for respectively the first, second and third 15-minute increments will be proposed to Grenoble citizens.