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Toyota working on cars that hover above the roadway

Toyota is one of the largest automakers in the world, but it's not content simply building and selling conventional cars - it's been at the forefront of numerous advancements in ground transportation. It is widely credited with advancing the cause of hybrid propulsion, and alongside Audi and Google, is among the first automakers seriously testing self-driving cars. We could go on, but the news here is that Toyota is reportedly developing vehicles that hover above the road surface instead of rolling along it.
The news comes from Hiroyoshi Yoshiki, one of Toyota's tech gurus, who revealed at Bloomberg's Next Big Thing summer in San Francisco that the company is working on hovering cars - ones that travel just above the road surface, but don't actually fly in three-dimension space.
According to The Verge, a spin-off of our own sister-site Engadget, Yoshiki refused to elaborate on what the project entails and how far along it is. He was speaking along acting NHTSA chief David Friedman, who lauded such advancements as a "great taste of innovations to come," but stressed the significance of more concrete improvements to conventional automobiles - like inter-car communications to keep vehicles from colliding on the highway - as more relevant to today's industry.

Toyota Prius sets a different kind of Nurburgring lap record [w/video]

Scroll down the leaderboards of Nürburgring lap times and you'll see mostly racing cars, supercars and sports cars. Delve deep enough and you'll eventually get to hatchbacks and sedans, albeit the most performance-focused of their kind. But a hybrid? Sure, the Porsche 918 Spyder posted the top time for a street-legal series production car, and it's technically a hybrid, but we're talking about another kind of hybrid here. We're talking about a Toyota Prius.
That's right: the Prius just set a lap record around the Nordschleife. But it wasn't for the lap time. In fact, miles per hour barely factored in (except for staying above the minimum 37-mph average speed mandated on the vaunted racing circuit). No, this was about miles per gallon.
Toyota took one of its Prius Plug-In hybrids to the Nürburgring, topped up the battery, put on a set of low-rolling-resistance tires and put automotive journalist Joe Clifford behind the wheel with a mandate to use as little fuel as possible. After one second shy of 21 minutes, the Prius completed its lap having used just five tablespoons of fuel.

Toyota will roll out solid-state battery EVs globally in a couple of years

GANDHINAGAR, India — Japan's Toyota Motor will in a couple of years globally launch vehicles with solid-state batteries that charge faster and last longer, an executive said on Thursday at an investment summit in India. Solid-state batteries promise to dramatically improve the driving range of electric vehicles (EVs), a key element of a strategic pivot Toyota unveiled in June to make up ground lost to Tesla and Chinese rivals, such as BYD, in the EV race. Last year, Toyota and oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan said they would tie up to develop and mass produce all-solid-state batteries, which they aim to commercialize in 2027 and 2028, followed by full-scale mass production. "We will be rolling out our electric vehicles with solid state batteries in a couple of years from now," said Vikram Gulati, the India head of Toyota Kirloskar Motor. It "will be a vehicle which will be charging in 10 minutes, giving a range of 1,200 kms (750 miles) and life expectancy will be very good". Gulati was speaking at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit where one focus of the Indian government is attracting more investments to scale up EV manufacturing capacity in the world's third largest auto market. At the start of the summit on Wednesday, Japan's Suzuki Motor said its Indian subsidiary and Toyota partner Maruti Suzuki would export the group's first battery EV to Japan and Europe — marking the first time for Maruti to export to its parent company's home country. Electric models made up around 2% of India's car sales last year, but the government is targeting 30% by 2030 and India's road transport minister said at the summit he sees annual EV sales in India reaching 10 million vehicles by 2030. On Toyota's plans for solid-state batteries in India, Gulati said the carmaker had various sustainable technology options that would differ based on the country, market and customer preferences. "Right now, for India, flex fuel and ethanol can be a no-brainer right away," he added India's trade department has backed lowering taxes on hybrid vehicles to help the transition to cleaner energy sources, following demands by Japanese carmakers, Reuters has reported. Gulati said the Indian government should consider a carbon-based tax structure for cars, which would make it technologically agnostic and more equitable.  Green Lexus Suzuki Toyota Electric