Sneak Peek: Toyota Furia Concept

Toyota will reveal the Furia concept at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show on January 14. Visit http://new.livestream.com/Toyota/Detroit2013 to follow the live reveal.

 

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Toyota Expand National Buckle Up for Life Program to Orange County

Responding to disproportionate risks that African American and Hispanic children face in motor vehicle-related crashes, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Toyota and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center today announced the expansion of the groundbreaking safety education program Buckle Up for Life to Orange County (Calif.). Buckle Up for Life – or Abrochate a la Vida in Spanish – is the only national program of its kind.  This is the first time the program will be available in Orange County, joining seven other Buckle Up for Life locations nationwide. 

  Research analyzed by medical experts at Cincinnati Children’s – a national leader in pediatric and adolescent medicine – shows that, due to multiple factors, African American and Hispanic children are significantly less likely than non-African American and non-Hispanic children to be buckled up in seat belts or car seats.

  Key Facts

  ·        Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. between the ages of 1 and 12.
·        Three out of every four car seats are not used or installed correctly and almost 50 percent of fatally injured children were unrestrained at the time of a crash.
·        African American and Hispanic children are as much as ten times more likely than Caucasian children to be unrestrained while traveling in a car.
·        In crashes involving fatalities in children under 14, seat belt use is lower among African Americans than among all other race or ethnic groups.
·        Hispanic children are significantly less likely to be buckled up than non-Hispanic children across all age groups.

  In one pilot city, Buckle Up for Life nearly tripled the number of children properly restrained in seat belts and car seats among the families who participated.  The program was founded and is jointly led by Cincinnati Children’s and Toyota, in coordination with local hospital partners, such as Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

  Toyota and local hospital partners are doubling the reach of Buckle Up for Life

  The expansion of Buckle Up for Life to Orange County is part of an effort by Toyota and Cincinnati Children’s to double the program’s reach.  The Orange County program joins other new programs in Las Vegas, Nev.; Philadelphia, Pa.; and Houston, Texas.  Buckle Up for Life programs are already in place with local hospital partners in Chicago; Cincinnati, Ohio; and San Antonio, Texas.  The program has also been deployed successfully in Los Angeles.

  Working in close coordination with local churches, Buckle Up for Life meets people in their own community.  The program’s experts work closely with local clergy to reach parents, caregivers and children with critical, interactive and culturally sensitive safety information and expanded access to car seats.

“At Toyota, we are strongly committed to the belief that everyone deserves to be safe,” said Patricia Salas Pineda, group vice president of National Philanthropy and the Toyota USA Foundation at Toyota Motor North America.  “Through our educational outreach, Collaborative Safety Research Center and numerous partnerships with leading hospitals, nonprofits and research universities nationwide, Toyota is engaged extensively in programs that help ensure that drivers and passengers are safe at every stage of life.  Buckle Up for Life is a vital commitment for Toyota, and we are proud to be working with the visionary medical staff at Cincinnati Children’s, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and with local hospital partners across the country to expand its reach.”

  “The Buckle Up for Life program is a safety program that helps save lives and reduce the number of injuries and deaths of children while riding in cars.” says Jeffrey S. Upperman, MD, director, Trauma Program at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.  “The Children's Hospital Los Angeles Injury Prevention Program is committed to safety and intervention throughout Southern California and beyond. By extending this program to Orange County, we can offer key safety intervention to a greater audience and keep more children safe."

  Toyota’s support for Buckle Up for Life is part of the company’s ongoing commitment to help make local communities safer and stronger.  The company has contributed more than 600 million dollars to nonprofits throughout the United States over the past 20 years.

 

Article Courtesy of Toyota

Your Monday Maintenance Tip: Preserve your car during long-term storage

Not going to use your car for more than a month? Make sure you store it properly to prevent unnecessary damage and repairs upon your return by placing a vapor barrier on your garage floor. A 4-mil polyethylene drop cloth will do.

Your Monday Maintenance Tip courtesy of Reader's Digest.

Toyota fights back in crossover wars with new RAV4

If there's one thing you can say about the current Toyota RAV4, it's distinctive. With a clunky spare tire hanging off the side-opening rear gate in most versions, there is no mistaking the compact crossover for any of the other look-alikes currently in the market.

But the appearance is dated, so Toyota hopes to make a styling and a sales statement with the new version that it just demonstrated here in the desert.

With a new front end that has a "bolder, more aggressive look" and raft of improvements from stem to stern, the new 2013 RAV4 should be able to boost its sales next year past 200,000, says Bill Fay, general manager of the Toyota division. If the mark can be achieved, it would be a big 25% improvement from about 160,000, what it's on track to sell of the outgoing model this year.

Toyota needs the new RAV4, coming to dealers next month, to be a hit. Midsize cars, where Toyota continues to be strong with Camry, and compact crossovers, home to RAV4, continue to be the hottest segments in the auto industry. Many buyers who look at one segment often weigh buying in the other.

Toyota has a built-in advantage. Since the model's debut in 1995, Toyota has sold more than 1.5 million RAV4s. About 80% of them are still being driven, Toyota says. It is banking that many current owners will be willing to replace their old one with the new version.

But unlike the past when small crossovers were largely a three-vehicle sales race between RAV4, Ford Escape and Honda CR-V, every major automaker has stepped into the segment with increasingly strong models -- even German luxury performance brands. Toyota says both the number of models and overall sales have tripled in the segment since 2000.

Against stiffer competition, RAV4 has been outsold through the first 11 months of the year not only by CR-V and Escape, but by Chevrolet Equinox as well. Nissan's Rogue isn't far behind. The new RAV4 is a crossover on a mission.

"What this is going to do is going to do is help Toyota not lose customers to others," says Edmunds.com analyst Jessica Caldwell, who drove the new RAV4 here last week. "It's going to keep people in the Toyota family."

To do it, Toyota engineers went through the current RAV4 to find features to improve, starting with taking the spare tire off the tailgate and burying it spare tire out of sight under the rear cargo area. Now it has a modern liftgate.

In addition, the new one has:

--Better fuel economy. The 2013 RAV4 will be rated at 24 miles a gallon in city driving, 31 mpg on the highway and 26 overall. It's a 2 mpg improvement on the combined. The all-wheel-drive version is expected to come in at 22 mpg in the city, 29 on the highway and 25 mpg overall. Wind drag is cut by a new rear spoiler.

--Six-speed transmission. RAV4 keeps the same 176-horsepower 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine as the outgoing version, but adds an improved transmission. The powertrain is smooth,though not overly peppy. A "sport" mode button tightens the steering and holds the gears longer, but the notion of making a RAV4 seems to make as much sense as making a Ferrari practical. Toyota says the new RAV4 bolts from zero to 60 in 8.9 seconds, 1.3 seconds faster than the present version. The six-cylinder engine option has been banished. Still want it? Toyota says buy the larger Highlander SUV instead.

--Two more airbags. In an age when automakers always seem to find a way to pack another airbag in family vehicles, Toyota increases RAV4's from six to eight. The two new ones are a knee-level one for the driver and a seat-cushion bag for the front passengerCHK.

--New standard features. The rear-backup camera and a 6.1-inch display screen, previously options, are now standard. As for interesting options, there is now a rear cross-traffic alert system that beeps when it senses another vehicle while the RAV4 is backing in a parking lot.

--More space. The cargo area increases by about 2 cubic feet. The seats are thinner, which makes for more rear legroom, but the roofline tapers towards the rear, which could reduce rear-seat headroom. Overall, the vehicle is about an inch longer if the spare tire on the rear isn't taken into account.

--Quiet. Winding through the desert hills, the RAV4 remained quiet. Toyota says it gave it new aerodynamic outside mirrors to help reduce wind noise.

--Fancier interior. Some of the seat combinations are now two-toned and the interior is also gussied up, with a soft-touch panel with "French stitching" that runs across the dashboard. It's attractive, but it does make it hard to reach the sport and economy mode buttons underneath.

The new RAV4 will be priced at $23,300 for the base model, plus $845 in shipping charges. That's up from $22,650 for the cheapest RAV4 now.

Toyota thinks the more popular version will be the XLE, which has more standard equipment including a sunroof, at $24,290. The fanciest version is the Limited at $27,010, which has larger 18-inch wheels, push button start and Toyota's fancy infotainment system, Entune. Add $1,400 more for all-wheel drive.

Still, RAV4 isn't a luxury barge. The upscale version doesn't come with leather seats. Instead, it has an upscale plastic.

The model will be aimed at young couples with kids, active single people and empty-nest boomers. With a target market that large, Fay indicates it's likely that RAV4's sale campaign will kick off with a Super Bowl ad.

Will it win back the compact crossover segement for Toyota?

It's got a shot, says analyst Caldwell. "It's a compelling package at the price point."

 

Courtesy of USA Today

Toyota and Microsoft working on driver gesture recognition (no, not those gestures)

Raise your hand, palm up, and the radio volume in your car goes up. Toyota sees gesture recognition as one way to reduce the complexity of cars. Not for steering and braking, but to deal with the secondary controls such as infotainment, navigation, or your cellphone. So says Jim Lentz, head of Toyota in the US. The goal is to reduce driver distraction. Toyota’s Board of Awesomeness (seriously) research team is working with Microsoft, a company that has spent years trying to reduce crashes. Their research vehicle is an electric skateboard with a Windows 8 tablet and Kinect motion sensing software (pictured below). In this case, raising or lowering the rider’s hand changes the speed. So, probably, does falling off. This is all theoretical research right now while Toyota and Lexus soldier ahead in production cars with touchscreens, voice recognition, the Entune/Enform infotainment interface, and Remote Touch, the haptic feedback joystick-like device on some Lexuses that controls the LCD display. “Imagine a dashboard where there are no buttons to push… no screens to tap… and your eyes can remain focused on the road. That’s exactly what Toyota is working on,” Lentz said in a speech at the recent Los Angeles Auto Show. “This could potentially work in conjunction with voice recognition which sometimes can be hindered by accents or mispronunciations. Hand gestures are pretty universal,” Lentz added. “I’ll wait for a few seconds while you insert your own punch line.” Separately, Lentz said Toyota in Japan is prototyping the Smart Insect (pictured right), a single-passenger electric vehicle with cameras facing inside and outside the car, gesture and voice recognition, motion sensors, and behavior predictions. For instance: Walk up to the car and it recognizes the driver’s face, blinks the headlamps, and unlocks and opens the doors. Sit down and the car says “Hello” or whatever the driver desires. Think custom ringtones-plus. Gesture recognition and the Smart Insect, Lentz says, “are just a few examples of the many types of mobility automakers are creating for a better tomorrow.”

Monday Maintenance: Car Engine Tune Up

Tuning up a car engine can involve inspecting the automatic transmission fluid, the brakes, the brake pads, the drive belts, the evaporative emission system, the fuel tank, the fuel filter, the fuel lines and many other components. Compose a checklist of parts to check during a tune-up with tips from an auto repair shop manager in this free video on car maintenance.

2012 Los Angeles Auto Show

Spirited, versatile and completely redesigned, the 2013 RAV4 is an evolution of the RAV4 revolution that began in 1996. Check out the global reveal at the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show.