Keeping an open mind on the Aston Martin Cygnet

This isn’t a joke, but a concept for Aston Martin’s new £20k city car. Called the Cygnet, it’s a tiny Toyota iQ-based commuter car redesigned inside and out, and will be sold to existing and future Aston owners from the end of 2010.
To some, the idea of dressing a baby Toyota with Aston Martin clothes, leaving the mechanicals unchanged, putting the famous old winged badge on the bonnet, doubling the price and selling it as an Aston Martin model to existing customers will come across as an abuse of some great traditions.
However, the Cygnet is much more than a badge and stickers special edition – the concept features a redesigned front end with the trademark Aston grille, a vented bonnet, plus air intakes around the iQ’s lights, all of which help to differentiate the concept from its donor car. There are also new door skins and Aston’s famous pop-out door handles, plus revisions to the rear.
Aston won’t be drawn into revealing details of the Cygnet’s interior, but promises the changes inside will be even more extreme than the tweaks outside.

Toyota Future

Committed to become a greener brand by 2010, Toyota is looking for ways to meet the growing needs of society in ways that are less harmful to the Earth.
Their dedication to the sustainability extends from the creation and improvement of automotive technologies "eco-friendly." to new forms of communication used to disseminate its green essence.

A new communication tool is the Toyota - Future.com: an interactive portal that aggregates a range of content in the field of sustainability. Videos, presentations, documentaries and many other interactions are available at the Toyota-Future.com.

A half and full-banner were placed in the home wired.com, one of the leading online partner of the project.

Toyota slows production

Toyota, the world's biggest auto maker, is forecasting that its global production output will fall by 12% in the next fiscal year, the lowest level in seven years, having previously predicted it will post its first net loss in 59 years in March. Alongside cutting its scheduled production totals from 7.1 million this year to 6.2 million for the year starting in April, the company predicts it will post an operating loss for the March year-end period.It is also said to have requested $2 billion (£1.4bn; €1.6bn) in loans from the government-supported Japan Bank for International Co-operation to provide funding for its corporate finance arm, Toyota Financial Services. The main issue motivating the move is thought to be the difficulties motor companies face in securing credit in the US, where total auto sales declined by over a third in January, having fallen by a similar level in Japan, and just over a quarter in Europe.

Toyota sees first annual net loss since 1950

TOKYO – Toyota forecast its first annual net loss since 1950 on Friday as plunging demand for cars, especially in the U.S., and the strong yen pummeled earnings at the world's No. 1 automaker.

Toyota Motor Corp. reported a 164.7 billion yen ($1.8 billion) loss for the October-December quarter, down sharply from the 458.6 billion yen profit for the same period the previous year. Quarterly sales plunged 28.4 percent to 4.8 trillion yen.

Joining a string of Japanese companies that are now expecting to slide into the red for the year, Toyota said it expects a net loss of 350 billion yen ($3.85 billion) for the fiscal year through March — a stunning reversal from the record 1.72 trillion yen profit it posted the previous year.

In December, Toyota, maker of the Prius hybrid and Camry sedan, thought it would eke out a small annual net profit, but the outlook has darkened since then, particularly as the U.S. auto market has collapsed.

"Toyota is having serious problems responding," said Yasuaki Iwamoto, analyst with Okasan Securities Co. in Tokyo. "It boasts a full and global lineup of products. But the world's auto demand changed in a flash."

Since the company can't count on global sales picking up next fiscal year, at best it can aim to cut costs to minimize the damage, Iwamoto said.

By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama, Ap Business Writer

Toyota overtakes GM as global sales supremo

Auto manufacturer General Motors, one of America's ailing 'Big Three' car makers, has fallen behindToyota in terms of global sales, losing its top ranking after posting a greater decline than its Japanese rival in 2008.

GM reported sales totalling 8.35m vehicles worldwide in 2008, while Toyota, already the biggest auto maker by earnings, shifted 8.97m units globally.

Overall, GM posted an 11% sales decline in 2008, including a slip of 20% in the US and 7% in Europe, offsetting 3% growth from emerging markets in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

Toyota, by contrast, registered a 4% slip in sales last year, its first year-on-year decline in a decade.

Jonathan Browning, GM's vice president for global sales, says: "The challenges in the global financial markets, including credit tightening, the drop in commodity prices and economic uncertainty continue to negatively impact demand for new vehicles."

Virtual test drive for Toyota IQ

Toyota Europe has recently launched a virtual test drive for its IQ model.

The website, created by the flash gurus at North Kingdom and Illianced allows users to drive the car through a futuristic landscape while discovering the main car features. The website is very nicely developed with a clean and simple design however, in my opinion, the experience results a bit too cold and "anesthetized".

Toyota slashes annual profit forecast

Toyota Motor slashed its annual profit forecast by more than half on Thursday, in a sign of how the global economic slowdown has slowed the Japanese auto juggernaut.
Japan's largest automaker also reported net profit in the three months ended Sept. 30 dropped by more than two-thirds, hurt by slowing demand, a tightening of car loans amid the global credit crunch and a stronger Japanese currency.
The steep declines, larger than those forecast by most analysts, threaten eight straight years of annual profit growth at Toyota, once the envy of the world car industry. It also cast into stark relief how America's economic contagion has infected automakers around the globe, hurting sales even in once fast-growing markets like India and China.
Toyota said it now expects net profits of ¥550 billion, or $5.5 billion, for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009, down 56 percent from its earlier forecast of ¥1.25 trillion. It also cut its annual sales forecast by ¥2 trillion to ¥23 trillion.
Toyota said net profit in the July- September quarter fell 69 percent to ¥139.8 billion.
"Frankly, it's very difficult to judge when the environment will stabilize," a Toyota executive vice president, Mitsu Kinoshita, told reporters.
The grim earnings report came just days after Toyota announced that October sales in the critical United States market had fallen 23 percent from last year. The slowdown has hit American rivals even harder, with General Motors reporting a 45 percent decline in the same month.
The global slowdown has struck Toyota just as it finishes rolling out a full lineup of vehicles, including larger eight-cylinder models like its Tundra pickup truck, in a bid to overtake GM as the world's largest automaker.
Thursday's results suggested the slowdown was hurting sales of Toyota's entire lineup, including popular, fuel-efficient models like its hybrid Prius and Camry sedan.
Analysts expect Toyota to react to the slowdown by relentlessly cutting costs and shifting more production and parts sourcing to local markets. The global slowdown has already forced the carmaker to put new factories on hold, layoff workers and offer ever sweeter incentives to entice buyers back into showrooms.