2012 Toyota Le on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Toyota temporarily idles pair of Indian plants due to labor unrest

The Detroit News reported today that Toyota will restart production at two Indian plants, following a shutdown on Monday.
Factory labor, management and police in Asia engage in the kind of violent altercations that we're not used to, having almost entirely walked away from the overtly brutal relations epitomized by the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the Flint Sit-Down Strike. In India, a plant owned by a Ford transmission supplier plant was shut down in 2009 after incidents between workers and armed men around the same time as Ssangyong workers occupied a factory in South Korea, in 2012 Suzuki Maruti workers rioted over wages around the same time upset employees beat a ceramics factory president to death in retaliation for a labor leader's killing.
Toyota is the latest to company trying to avoid that road. The Detroit Free Press reported earlier this week that it shut down two plants in India after 11 months of acrimonious wage negotiations and arbitration have gone nowhere. Toyota said the plant workers in Bidadi, near Bangalore, had deliberately stopped production at times over the past 45 days and threatened management. The workers said they wanted their wages raised by an amount already agreed to by management, but that management had reneged; news reports weren't clear on the amount, some saying nearly 10,000 rupees ($165 US) more per month, another saying 4,000 rupees ($65 US), but reports agree that Toyota has said it will only go as high as 3,050 rupees ($50 US).

VW targeting 10M sales in 2014

Volkswagen Group believes it can sell over 10 million vehicles in 2014, with hopes of overtaking Toyota as the world's largest automaker in the process. If VW can do it, it would meet that goal four years earlier than planned. Of course, Toyota isn't sitting still - it also hopes to top the 10 million-car threshold this year and has the advantage of already holding the top spot.
"With rising volume and new models, we will increasingly see positive earnings effects as well," said VW Group CEO Martin Winterkorn during its annual press conference, according to Automotive News. The company is spending huge amounts of money to propel it to the top, investing 84.2 billion euros ($117 billion) through 2018, and according to AN it plans to introduce over 100 new models worldwide among all of its brands by the end of next year.
The German automaker may get an extra boost as the European car industry shows signs of emerging from its yearlong stagnation and China continues to grow. In January, VW Group was up 8.5 percent in Europe and 15.5 percent in China, according to its own figures. However, the US has been slowing with Volkswagen brand sales down 19.04 percent in January and down 13.81 percent in February.

Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell coming to US Northeast in 2016

Looks like someone was able to read the future back in July. That's when rumors first circulated that Toyota's upcoming fuel cell vehicle will be called the Mirai. Today, Toyota president Akio Toyoda confirmed the name alongside plans to build out a hydrogen refueling infrastructure in the US Northeast.
In Japanese, mirai (??) means "future," which is a fitting name for a car that Toyota believes represents the direction the auto industry will go in the coming years. In a promotional video announcing the name, Toyoda said, "For [Toyota], this isn't just another car. This is an opportunity - an opportunity to really make a difference. And making a difference is what Toyota is all about."
To help that future come into existence, Toyota CEO Jim Lentz also disclosed the vague outline of a fuel cell infrastructure investment that Toyota and partner Air Liquide will make in a five-state Northeastern corridor that consists of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. The Mirai will be available there in 2015 and Toyota is going to build 12 stations in and around New York and Boston to support the launch. More details will be available later.