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Toyota sold record 1.52 million hybrids in 2017

Toyota has been selling electrified cars for more than two decades now, launching the Prius hybrid in Japan in 1997. Back in the fall of 2015, the automaker announced a number of goals as part of its "Environmental Challenge 2050." One of those was to sell 1.5 million hybrids (including its Lexus brand) annually by 2020. Toyota has announced that is has already achieved that goal, selling 1.52 electrified vehicles in 2017. That's an 8 percent increase of Toyota's 2016 hybrid sales, and means the company has sold more than 11.47 million electrified vehicles since it began. Toyota says that represents a reduction of more than 90 million tons of CO2. Last year's achievement "is a testament from our customers to the quality, durability and reliability of our electrified powertrains," says Toyota Executive VP Shigeki Terashi, "and, thanks to them, has led us to establish a solid and sustainable foundation for mass producing a more diverse portfolio of electrified vehicles across our range moving forward." Other goals of Toyota's Environmental Challenge 2050 are 30,000 annual fuel cell vehicle sales by 2020, mass production of battery electric vehicles in 2020 and annual electrified vehicle sales of 5.5 million by 2030. These are all part of Toyota's larger goal of reducing new vehicle CO2 emissions by 90 percent by 2050 (compared to 2010). Prior to 2016, Toyota hybrid sales peaked in 2013, at 1.28 million before slumping slightly in 2014 and 2015. Toyota saw an uptick and a new record in 2016, at 1.4 million, before setting yet another record in 2017, at 1.52 million. Related Video:

Jay Leno goes offroading with the legendary Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart

Jay Leno takes a step outside of his cavernous garage for this latest video for a jaunt into the desert to get a little dirty. He meets up with off-road racing legend Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart, who has multiple Baja 500 and 1000 wins in his motorsports career, to play with a Toyota Tundra in the sand.
Unfortunately, Leno doesn't get to interview Stewart too deeply about his long history in racing, but Ironman does talk a little bit about reading the trail while speeding through the desert. In lieu of a great conversation, there is a ton of high-quality footage of the Toyota bounding through the desert.
This clip feels more like a marketing effort than the usual output from Jay Leno's Garage, but it's still great to see Stewart behind the wheel sliding a truck, just like old times. The two of them even take the truck on a somewhat humorous journey at the end of the video.

Toyota GT86 convertible could debut in March

The dates are lining up, now we wait to see how the badges align. Just before the Toyota GT 86/Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ line-up was introduced at the Tokyo Motor Show last year, there was a report that Subaru was considering a convertible while Toyota wouldn't even comment on it. That got swapped around when earlier this year the chief engineer on Toyota's side said a convertible was coming, and then a Scion FR-S droptop was confirmed for early 2014.
Autocar now reports that the Toyota GT 86 convertible will make its first appearance at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show in March. In a car whose specs like weight, packaging, horsepower and center of gravity were all tightly controlled to get the most from the least, the changes necessitated by chopping the roof could make this a very different car. It's said to employ a fabric roof to keep a "small" weight gain check, and the suspension will be softened to work more harmoniously with the decreased body stiffness. And somewhere in all that the back seat and trunk space will need to take a hit.
In other news, Autocar says the hi-po GT 86 with some kind of capacitor system instead of batteries is being worked on for 2015.