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Toyota and Lexus show off advanced safety research vehicle [w/video]

While Google and Audi explore the possibilities of autonomous vehicles, Toyota and its Lexus division are studying the intermediate step of vehicles equipped with a deep suite of technology that help drivers make the best decisions. Introduced at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Lexus advanced safety research vehicle is an LS sedan fitted with three high-def color cameras to detect objects up to almost 500 feet away, 360-degree Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) lasers that can detect objects up to 220 feet away, three radar units to keep track of other vehicles at intersections, a precision odometer on the rear wheel, GPS that estimates orientation and an accelerometer.
Currently testing at a purpose-built 8.6 acre urban testing ground at the Higashi-Fuji Technical Center in Susono, Japan the Toyota research vehicle is being used to study how to make better drivers, as well as figuring out how to reduce crashes as the industry's journey through passive and active safety systems progresses. In the event of a crash, new rescue systems are also being tested.
Further investment is being put into the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) that would use shortwave signals to harness information from the car and from other vehicles on the road, as well as roadside infrastructure and even pedestrians. Toyota reasons it could then build a picture of interactions and, for instance, alert the driver to a potential collision at a blind intersection.

Toyota offered $146.5 million to build Lexus ES in Kentucky

Toyota posted a media advisory yesterday saying that Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, and Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota North America, would be making a production announcement tomorrow in New York City, and Automotive News reports that the automaker will be announcing a plan to domestically produce the Lexus ES. According to the report, numerous plants are competing to build the ES in North America, and the State of Kentucky has offered the automaker up to $146.5 million to build the luxury sedan at the Georgetown, KY assembly plant.
If Georgetown gets the ES, which has been built in Japan since its debut in 1989, it would be built alongside the Toyota Camry, which is somewhat ironic since in our review of the 2013 Lexus ES350, we wrote that this ES finally says "goodbye to its Camry roots." In order to get the whole amount offered, the article states that Toyota would have to invest $531.2 million and hire 570 full-time workers at the plant, which doesn't sound all that unreasonable since the plant would require an additional 50,000 units of annual production, not to mention the fact that the Georgetown facility is already at its capacity for building the Camry.

Car thief caught in McDonald's drive-thru after placing order with owner

If you're going to drive a stolen car in a town of roughly 77,000 people - about the same size as Scranton, Pennsylvania or Ogden, Utah - you want to be very careful about where you drive that stolen car to eat. That's the lesson Katherine York of Kennewick, Washington learned when she was arrested for being in possession of a stolen Toyota 4Runner that also happened to have a bunch of stolen clothes from JC Penney and Sears in it.
Virginia Maiden woke up Tuesday, May 14 to find her 1995 4Runner - that she thought she forgot to lock - swiped from her apartment building. At 3 PM that afternoon, while working her shift at the drive-thru at McDonald's that day, she saw her truck in line. York hadn't even gone far - the McDonald's is not even five miles from Maiden's apartment. Maiden called the police, they showed up just as York was leaving, and York made another vehicle switch, this time into a black-and-white for a trip to the Benton County jail. They don't have McDonald's there, but she won't have so far to go to eat.