Ford overtakes Toyota in quality rankings

Ford Motor Co. has overtaken Toyota in J.D. Power and Associates' annual quality rankings which was released yesterday. Ford won model segment awards for the Ford Mustang, Lincoln Mark LT, Lincoln MKZ, Mazda MX-5 Miata and Mercury Milan. This is the first time since 1998, it has won more individual awards than any other automaker. Read the full report here.

Mercedes-Benz and Toyota models won top spots for three segment each. Toyota received awards for the 4Runner, Sequoia and Tacoma. It had grabbed awards in 11 segments last year. Mercedes-Benz won for the E-Class, SL-Class, and the S-Class.

Toyota Prius is top selling hybrid

The popularity of hybrid cars continue to grow through out the world. It's been nearly a decade since the first Toyota Prius went on sale. According to this report, cumulative sales of this car totaled 1.047 million as of the end of May.

Toyota is still working on what is expected as the next innovation of hybrids, the switch to lithium-ion batteries.

Toyota now account for 80% of car sales in the US.

New Toyota model

A new Toyota model was seen on Indian roads. Take a look at the spy shot of the Toyota model codenamed Toyota Cowrolla.

Got this from Arunima's blog.

Tags: Toyota Humour

Toyota cautious of becoming number 1

Most manufacturers would be overjoyed to become the #1 carmaker in the US and I guess Toyota is no exception. However, according to this article "Why Toyota Is Afraid Of Being Number One", they are keen to avoid the backlash that might happen.

Toyota has done a remarkable job over the past 20 years of selling itself as an American company.

Read on on how Toyota became the most respected car company in America.

Sales in different parts of the World, according to the Third Quarter Financial Results:

North America: Vehicle sales reached 764 thousand, an increase of 121 thousand units, due to strong sales of redesigned models such as the RAV4, Camry and Yaris and the new model FJ Cruiser.

Europe: Led by strong sales of compact models such as the Yaris, vehicle sales increased by 60 thousand, to 306 thousand units.

Asia: Sales decreased by 13 thousand, to 204 thousand units, as a result of weakened market conditions in Indonesia and Taiwan.

Other regions, including Central and South America, Oceania and Africa: Vehicle sales increased to 340 thousand units, an increase of 37 thousand, due to continuing popularity of the IMV series in Central and South America and the Camry in Oceania.

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Tags: Toyota

Join other Scion lovers

The Scion xB is a 5-door compact vehicle made by the US-exclusive Scion division of Toyota. It has a unique box shape and is targeted at the youth segment of the market known as the "Y" generation.

The xB was one of the three models in Scion's lineup, the others being the xA and the tC. Launched in 2004, Toyota made the Scion xB attractive to it's target segment by making it easy to personalize their vehicles by offering an extensive list of factory accessories. This includes light kits, spoilers, wheels and music systems among others. It's really amazing that you can actually choose your car, customize your vehicle and order it online. Scion builds it to order in about a week.

The maximum suggested retail price for the base models are $14,610 for the manual version and $15,410 for the automatic. This price is of 9/18/06 and includes the delivery, processing and handling fee.

I would consider that as a really good price for a Toyota but the question is, whether it is value for the money?

Going through what owners and fans of this has to say in the scion xb forums, I believe that it indeed is a good buy.

Even though there have been some criticisms that the car looked like a box or a crate or or that it is underpowered (it has a 1.5 liter 4 cylinder engine) it has developed quite a bit of a fan following. Another surprising thing was that even though it was targeted at the young hip generation, a lot of older people in their late 30s were attracted to the car because of it's fuel efficiency.

Another information I gathered from the forum is that the present Scion xB, which was launched in 2004 is the first generation. Toyota unveiled the second generation xB at the 2007 Chicago Auto Show. It is a larger, more rounded than the present xB and is styled as a 5-door version of the t2B concept unveiled the year before at the 2006 New York Auto Show.


The second-generation xB, which is expected to come out in 2008 is powered by a 2.4L engine shared with the tC and the Camry. That should silence some of the critics who claim that it is underpowered. Besides VSC and ABS, the new generation xB will have six airbags, as well as cruise control as standard.

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Good news for expats in Malaysia

According to this recent message I received from UMW Toyota Motor, in support of the Malaysia My Second Home programme, they are now offering new locally-assembled Toyota vehicles without any excise duty and sales tax.

Tags: Toyota Malaysia Offers