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Toyota, Mazda drop Takata as Mitsubishi, Subaru weigh options

It's not a very good time to be Takata right now. Fresh on the heels of longtime partner Honda ditching them, Toyota and Mazda have both come out and said they will not use the company's airbag inflators if they continue to rely on ammonium nitrate. Bloomberg reports that Subaru and Mitsubishi are also contemplating a divorce. "The inflator using ammonium nitrate produced by Takata will not be adopted by Toyota," President Akio Toyoda said during a briefing today. "What's most important above anything else is the safety and peace of mind of customers." Mazda echoed that position, simply saying it "will not use Takata airbag inflators which contain ammonium nitrate in our new cars." When you lose three huge OEM accounts in as many days, it's certainly going to have a deleterious effect on your fortunes. In Takata's case, that's meant a staggering 39-percent drop in their share price over the last three days. Yesterday alone, the company saw a 6.2-percent fall, Bloomberg reports. As the business publication reports, though, Takata isn't going down without a fight. The company is "considering some plans to survive," including a fundraising plan that will see it potentially offer up additional shares for sale. Still, at least one analyst doesn't see whatever company survives staying involved in the airbag inflator business. "I really don't see how they're going to be able to survive as an inflator manufacturer," Valient Market Research founder Scott Upham told Bloomberg. "When your major clients publicly come out and say that they're not going to use your products anymore, it makes this very difficult to sustain your business." News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: Carlos Osorio / AP Honda Mazda Mitsubishi Subaru Toyota Safety supplier

Watch a Camry driver in full road rage

There are vehicles that, fair or not, will forever be associated with jerky drivers. But as this very recent footage from an in-car camera shows, even the most mundane of sedans can be piloted by an ass.
In this video, the driver of one very beige Toyota Camry is driving like a person choked with rage. Though we don't see which (if any) actions by our camera car might have lead up to the tirade, we do see the Camry driver swerving from lane to lane, in multiple attempts to get in front of and brake check the couple in the recording.
According to the text associated with the YouTube video, the offending incident took place last week, on a section of I-880 near Fremont, CA. The uploader has gone so far as to include the date, time and license plate number of the Camry driver, in hopes, we guess, that some kind of legal action can be taken against him. Take a closer look for yourself in the video below.

2015 Toyota Camry priced at $22,970*, Hybrid at $26,790*

We last saw the heavily revised 2015 Toyota Camry at the New York Auto Show earlier this year. Now, it's finally time for the best-selling car in the US to hit the roads in late September, and Toyota is announcing how much the updated model actually costs.
The basic Camry LE rings up for $22,970 (*not including a $825 delivery, processing and handling fee). That's up slightly from the base price of $22,425 for the 2014.5 LE, but the updated sedan has some 2,000 new parts, while also being 1.8 inches longer and boasting a 0.4-inch wider track. The rest of the trim levels include the SE for $23,840, sporty new XSE for $26,150 and XLE at $26,150. Opting for the V6 is the XSE and XLE bumps pricing to $31,370.
Separately, the Camry Hybrid gets its own LE, SE and XLE trims. The LE starts at $26,790 with a standard, power driver's seat and 4.2-inch information display. The SE for $27,995 gets an improved interior and the XLE at $29,980 has leather, heated front seats, LED running lights and more.