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Toyota, Daihatsu and Suzuki team up to unbox some fun-size electric kei vans

The G7 Summit is happening in Hiroshima, Japan, right now and some automakers have taken the opportunity to announce new projects. Toyota, their wholly owned subsidiary Daihatsu, and Suzuki (of which Toyota owns about 5%) made news with a trio of electric micro-vans built to kei car specifications. The battery-electric vans are part of an industry-wide push toward carbon neutrality. Kei-class vehicles, in addition to limited displacement gasoline engines, have strict dimensional restrictions that allow them to navigate the often narrow streets in dense urban areas. They're also privilege to certain tax breaks and parking benefits.  [gallery ids="2474953,2474954"] The engine size rules obviously don't apply to the electric vans, but they will still conform to the size boundaries. Kei vans are often used to solve the "last mile" problem in logistics since they're able to whiz around crowded streets inaccessible by larger commercial vehicles.  Daihatsu, which specializes in kei cars, will build the vans and name their variant the HiJet Cargo. The HiJet name has been a consistent one in the company's lineup since 1960, but these new versions will be front-wheel-drive in contrast to the rear-wheel-drive gasoline variants. Toyota's version will be called the Pixis Van, while Suzuki will be named the Every, a nameplate that's been around since 1982. Aside from the badges the vans appear identical. Range is said to be approximately 200km (124 miles) on a single charge.  The exhibition was held in conjunction with the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, which former Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda heads. Toyoda stepped down from the top position at the company his grandfather founded in April, but still takes a overseer role as Chairman. Toyoda was criticized for being slow to adopt EVs, and new CEO Koji Sato has emphasized the role of battery-electrics moving forward while still taking a multi-front approach to carbon neutrality with hydrogen and hybrids. These vans were likely in development before Toyoda's retirement, though.

Refreshed Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ spied running around the Nurburgring

The Toyota 86 and Subaru BRZ are officially confirmed for a second generation, but it looks like this current car will not go softly into the night. One of our spy photographers just caught a camo’d up BRZ/86 pounding around the Nurburgring with a few changes in store. This tester only has camouflage on the front and rear of the car, indicating a light refresh is the extent of the styling changes. In examining the car as a whole, itÂ’s a rather conflicting tester. Both the grille and headlights tell us itÂ’s an 86, but the badge on the rear clearly says “BRZ.”  The Toyota 86 has a different grille than the BRZ, and we can see that style grille flanked by some massaged vents on both sides. Toyota uses a different style of headlight for the 86, and these look similar to those used in the current car. New front-design features are covered up by the camouflage, but the sheet metal doesnÂ’t appear to be changing. Another area of potential change is at the rear of the car. More camouflage on the trunk lid covers the obvious BRZ badge and the taillights. We donÂ’t see much in the way of differences between the taillights on this model and the current BRZ/86 twins, but the manufacturer obviously wants to keep something secret back there. What weÂ’re most excited about is seeing the extra vent behind the front wheels. Current BRZ and 86 trims donÂ’t feature such intense cooling additions. Above it sits what appears to be a badge or protrusion of some sort. The window-level badging is still visible under the wrapping, but the tire-level badge is a new one — itÂ’s similar to the design we see on the WRX and WRX STI.  All things considered, this one is a little confusing. Subaru could be adopting a more Toyota 86-esque design, but we suspect a special edition is in the works. Hopefully it involves more than just design tweaks, and gives this model a hearty send-off before the new generation arrives.

Legal approach in $1.2 billion Toyota settlement could impact handling of GM recall cases

In the past, if an automaker did something wrong, they were usually prosecuted by the US government through something called the TREAD Act. Short for Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation Act, it basically requires automakers to report recalls in other countries, along with any and all serious injuries or deaths, to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Failing to report or attempting to conceal anything when there's been a death or serious injury constitutes a criminal liability. The idea is that this setup puts the onus on manufacturers to keep NHTSA apprised of safety related issues before they become a problem in the US, thereby allowing the regulator to better protect consumers.
In theory, it sounds like a relatively airtight set of rules for dealing with misbehaving automakers. That didn't stop the US Department of Justice from ignoring TREAD in its prosecution of Toyota's handling of the unintended acceleration recall, though. The result of this new approach, which charged Toyota with wire fraud, was a $1.2 billion settlement. Now, the wire-fraud approach could be used for the expected case between the US government and General Motors, based on the statements of Attorney General Eric Holder, who specifically mentioned "similarly situated companies" when discussing Toyota.