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Autoblog Minute: New Prius, Bentley Bentyaga, Rolls-Royce Dawn

Bentley and Rolls-Royce both introduce new luxury vehicles and Toyota revealed its latest Prius. Autoblog senior editor Greg Migliore reports on the Weekly Recap edition of Autoblog Minute. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] Bentley and Rolls-Royce both introduce new luxury vehicles and Toyota revealed its latest Prius I'm Senior editor Greg Migliore and this is your Autoblog Minute Weekly Recap. With a top speed of 187 mph Bentyaga will be the fastest production SUV on the road when it hits the market. Eventually, Bentley intends to launch a seven-seat version, a higher performance Speed model, and more efficient diesel and hybrid variants of its new luxury SUV. Dawn is the new four seater convertible from Rolls-Royce. While the car looks to the past for its name it boasts lots of modern tech including Rolls-Royce's Zed F eight-speed automatic transmission for imperceptible gear changes and a silently operating, six layer, canvas top. The launch of Toyota's latest Prius marks the fourth generation of the popular hybrid. Prius has gone from a niche product to one of the industry's most important vehicles. Toyota hopes its new Prius will redefine the category it helped to pioneer. We're expecting fuel economy to increase by 10 percent and this is the most tech laden Prius ever. Those are the highlights from the week that was. Be sure to check out my full recap this Saturday. Plus, some insight on the new Cadillac XT5. For Autoblog, I'm Greg Migliore. Autoblog Minute is a short-form video news series reporting on all things automotive. Each segment offers a quick and clear picture of what's happening in the automotive industry from the perspective of Autoblog's expert editorial staff, auto executives, and industry professionals. Bentley Rolls-Royce Toyota Convertible SUV Hybrid Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video rolls-royce dawn

Toyota previews next Lexus RX with Tokyo-bound JDM Harrier

The Lexus RX shares much with the Toyota Highlander, but its more direct counterpart is the Toyota Harrrier. Never heard of it? That's because Toyota only sells it at home in Japan, and now it's revealed a new one. So if the Harrier is essentially a Toyota-badged version of the RX, then what's the big deal, you ask? The big deal is that the new Harrier which leaked in July, set to debut at the Tokyo Motor Show next week and which you see here isn't quite the same as the Lexus, and those differences could (and in most cases likely will) make their way over to the RX as well.
For starters, the styling is different. Granted that the Lexus version will almost certainly get a spindle-shaped grille, but even so, the Harrier's nose seems to protrude further than the RX's and the headlamps are a notably different shape. The greenhouse is also a different shape, coming to a sharper point at the back, and the mirrors are fixed to the A-pillar not to the door panel. The taillamps are revised, the tailgate has a new profile and there's a pseudo-diffuser at the bottom of the rear bumper. Subtle changes, to be sure, but then Toyota and Lexus are known for their evolutionary approach to styling. The interior has apparently undergone some updates as well, with a more dynamically styled dashboard, a more symmetrical center stack and different seats, steering wheel, door panels... the works. The infotainment display screen has also moved further down from its position in the current RX.
Toyota will offer the new Harrier with a 2.0-liter four mated to a CVT and driving either the front wheels or all four, and a hybrid setup with a 2.5-liter married to a 140-hp electric motor. The RX is offered here with a 3.5-liter V6 either on its own or with an electric assist. We wouldn't expect Lexus to go swapping the larger engines for the smaller ones, at least not for the US market. There's plenty more to the Harrier, of course, than the similarities and differences to the Lexus RX, and if you're buying a premium crossover in Japan, you can delve into the full details in the press release below, together with the images in the gallery above.

Toyota retires robots in favor of humans to improve automaking process

Mitsuru Kawai is overseeing a return to the old ways at Toyota factories throughout Japan. Having spent 50 years at the Japanese automaker, Kawai remembers when manual skills were prized at the company and "experienced masters used to be called gods, and they could make anything." Company CEO Akio Toyoda personally chose Kawai to develop programs to teach workers metalcraft such as how to forge a crankshaft from scratch, and 100 workstations that formerly housed machines have been set aside for human training.
The idea is that when employees personally understand the fabrication of components, they will understand how to make better machines. Said Kawai, "To be the master of the machine, you have to have the knowledge and the skills to teach the machine." Lessons learned by the newly skilled workers have led to shorter production lines - in one case, 96percent shorter - improved parts production and less scrap.
Taking time to give workers the knowledge to solve problems instead of merely having them "feed parts into a machine and call somebody for help when it breaks down," Kawai's initiative is akin to that of Toyota's Operations Management Consulting Division, where new managers are given a length of time to finish a project but not given any help - they have to learn on their own. It's not a step back from Toyota's quest to build more than ten million cars a year; it's an effort to make sure that this time they don't sacrifice quality while making the effort. Said Kawai, "We need to become more solid and get back to basics."