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Toyota confirms all-wheel drive V8 hybrid for TS040 LMP1 car in 2014

The 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship is gearing up to be one of the most exciting seasons of endurance racing in recent memory. All of the factory-entered LMP1 class cars are using hybrid powertrains, and Porsche is returning to the top class of the sport after a 16-year absence. Don't count out Toyota, though. The team has just revealed the first official details about its 2014 TS040 LMP1 car, and it has a big surprise - all-wheel drive.
The TS040 will follow Audi's lead and will use a combination motor and generator to power the front wheels. The system will generate power under braking and will use it up when accelerating to give a boost in traction over last year's rear-wheel-drive Toyota TS030. Toyota will stick with a gasoline-fueled, naturally aspirated 3.4-liter V8 to feed the rear wheels and will take on Audi's diesel, turbocharged 3.7-liter V6 and Porsche's gasoline-fueled, turbo 2.0-liter four-cylinder.
Sadly, there are no real pictures of the TS040 yet. Toyota is holding off on unveiling the car until the end of March at the WEC test at the Paul Ricard circuit, and the racing season doesn't begin until April 20 with the 6 Hours of Silverstone. You can read the whole press release about the TS040 below.

Hello, Siri? Please don't crash the car

Hands on the wheel and eyes on the road? You could still be distracted while driving. Voice-recognition software that many automakers tout as a safer alternative to handheld devices can still divert drivers' attention, a new study published by AAA found. Researchers noted that workload ratings were the highest on their scales when participants in the study used Siri. The technology is alluring because it allows drivers to do things like change the radio station or compose a text message without removing their hands from the wheel or their gaze from the road. But many of those tasks increase a driver's cognitive workload. Depending on the situation, that can be dangerous. "It's especially problematic, because you can be distracted and not know it," J. Peter Kissinger, president of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, told Autoblog. "That's the nature of mental distraction. It's hard to appreciate. ... Often, you don't know you're distracted until it's too late." There's significant variation in the results of the study. Simple, single-task car commands for operations like changing the radio station caused minimal increases in workload, about the same as listening to an audio book. Composing information using speech-to-text technology was more burdensome, and using menu-based functions caused a high level of cognitive workload. Siri-based interactions posed the highest levels of distraction, according to AAA. Researchers noted that workload ratings were the highest on their scales when participants in the study used Siri, and two of the three simulator crashes they observed during the study of 36 participants came while the subjects were interacting with Siri. The subjects weren't looking at nor making contact with their iPhones during these interactions. "Common issues involved inconsistencies in which Siri would produce different responses to seemingly identical commands," the researchers wrote. "In other circumstances, Siri required exact phrases to accomplish specific tasks and subtle deviations from that phrasing would result in a failure. ... Some participants also reported frustration with Siri's occasional sarcasm and wit." It wasn't just the complexity of the task that caused variations in level of distraction – the variations could also be dependent on the particular make and model of the car being tested.

Lexus LFA prototype spied lapping the Nurburgring with new bodywork

The Lexus LFA was a real engineering tour de force. Sure, it was stuck in development hell for years, and the 4.8-liter V10's 552-horsepower output wasn't super impressive when it came out, but it integrated a ton of expertise Toyota gained from its F1 team in the early to mid 2000s. Unfortunately, it didn't sell well. Last year, we found there were a few new models sitting on dealer lots, five years after the 500-model run ended. Still, it looks like Toyota may not have given up on the idea of a race-derived flagship for Lexus, at least based on this prototype running around the Nurburgring this week. At first glance, the car pictured here looks like an LFA with the Nurburgring Package and some camouflage on the front and rear fenders. If you look closely, you can see that the fenders are significantly wider than on the standard LFA. Based on the license plate, this appears to be the same car with two different sets of wheels. Lexus may simply be swapping out worn tires, or they may be testing different wheel and tire combinations to fit the wider wheel wells. Anything beyond this is just speculation. There have been rumors of a new flagship Lexus sports car that sits atop the LC 500 and LC 500h. We saw the Toyota GR Super Sport Concept back in January, though that car looks nothing like what we see here. As much as we would love that sweet Yamaha co-developed V10 to carry over, we're not holding our breath. Some sort of hybrid powertrain is almost a certainty. Maybe Lexus and Toyota could pull some tech from its Le Mans-winning TS050 Hybrid race car. Related Video: