2001 Toyota Sequoia Sr5 Sport Utility 4-door 4.7l on 2040-cars

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Jim Lentz exposes more details behind Toyota's move to Texas

Toyota's North American CEO Jim Lentz has already given us a rough idea of what prompted the company's surprise move to the Dallas suburb of Plano, TX from its longstanding headquarters in Torrance, CA. A new story from The Los Angeles Times, though, delivers even more detail from Lentz on the reasoning for the move, what other cities were considered and why the company's current host city wasn't even in the running.
Of course, one of the more popular reasons being bandied about includes the $40 million Texas was set to give the company for the move, as well as the state's generous tax rates. According to Lentz, though, the reason Toyota chose Plano over a group of finalists made up of Atlanta, Charlotte and Denver, was far simpler than that - it was about consolidating its marketing, sales, engineering and production teams in a region that's closer to the company's seat of manufacturing in the south.
"It doesn't make sense to have oversight of manufacturing 2,000 miles away from where the cars were made," Lentz told The Times. "Geography is the reason not to have our headquarters in California."

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:

Toyota recalling 11,200 Scion iQ models over faulty passenger sensors

Toyota has announced a voluntary recall of 11,200 Scion iQ models from the 2012 and 2013 model years. According to the manufacturer, the problem with these pint-sized hatchbacks concerns the front passenger Occupant Classification System (OCS) weight sensor cables.
The OCS sensors in the front passenger seat control the operation of things like the airbags and seatbelt pre-tensioner. In these affected models, the cables for these sensors located in the seat track can become damaged as the passenger seat slides forward and backward. And if the cables are damaged, the airbags and seatbelt pre-tensioner may not function properly.
No injuries or crashes have been reported in conjunction with this issue.