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HQ move based on study, not pitch from Gov. Perry, Toyota says

Toyota's surprising announcement on Monday that it will move its North American headquarters from Torrance, CA location to the Dallas suburb of Plano, TX is allegedly not due to any political wrangling from the state's Republican governor, Rick Perry.
Perry (above) has been up front in his aggressive pursuit of businesses and jobs for Texas, traveling to California, Missouri, Illinois and New York to tempt corporations to his state. And it's not just about the promise of much lower taxes, a Perry spokesman reminds Automotive News that the state boasts, "a workforce that is skilled and ready to do any job."
For his part, Jim Lentz, Toyota's North American CEO said Plano was chosen through an internal process, with the location helped by its proximity to the company's massive pickup factory in San Antonio rather than any campaigning from the governor.

Lexus planning a hydrogen fuel-cell LS by 2017

Toyota's Fuel Cell System will certainly migrate to other vehicles in the carmaker's lineup, but Australian car site Motoring reports that one of the models at the head of the queue is the Lexus LS. According to its sources, the executive barge powered by hydrogen will be released by 2017 and take the top spot in the range, rolling in above the LS Hybrid. We're told that Toyota engineers will find a way to slide two hydrogen tanks into its bodywork with the same general setup as on the Mirai – one under the rear seats and another under the rear parcel shelf. The 150-kW fuel cell stack will be placed under the front seats. Motoring says the resulting sedan and its 220-kW electric motor would come in "at around 2,100 kg," which is 4,620 pounds; that's a ginormous 539 pounds less than the listed curb weight of the current LS Hybrid, and 387 pounds more than the standard LS. Assuming all goes as planned, it would have a range of roughly 238 miles, a few dozens less than the Mirai's range of about 300 miles. It would look slightly different, too, the front end getting larger intakes to cool the power unit. It wouldn't surprise us if Lexus does have a hydrogen LS planned – it would be a statement car, and the company likes making statements, even if few heed them; it has stuck with its LS 600h for the past seven years, yet of the 7,539 LS models sold through the end of November this year, only 61 of them were hybrids. The timing would be intriguing, however; by the time the LS hybrid came out, Lexus had already worked over its filet-and-potatoes models. And if the hydrogen version is going to come in above the $120,440 hybrid, well, that will be a statement indeed.

Honda Accord barely edges Toyota Prius as California's best-selling car

The Toyota Prius definitely still matters, at least to car buyers in California. The long-lived hybrid was the state's second-bestselling vehicle in 2014 by moving 71,210 units across all of its variants, including the Prius C. The Toyota was the leader there in 2012 and 2013 but lost the sales crown this time – just barely – to the Honda Accord, which sold 71,578 examples. The results in the Golden State illustrate just how different the auto market there is compared to the rest of the country. Prius sales slumped last year nationwide with a drop of 11.5 percent to 207,372 examples sold. However, according to the LA Times, the model's numbers ticked up two percent in California in 2014. Taken by itself, the standard hatchback model would have been the sixth-bestseller there, with 39,036 units purchased. While the Toyota showed modest growth, it wasn't enough to fend off the Accord's 17 percent year-over-year jump in the state, though. According to the Los Angeles Times, the rest of the California top ten included the Honda Civic, Toyota Camry, Corolla, Ford F-Series, CR-V, Nissan Altima, Sentra and Chevrolet Silverado, respectively. That list was quite a departure from the nationwide bestsellers in 2014, which was led by the F-Series, Silverado and Ram pickups. The Camry was the country's foremost car on the list in fourth place overall to beat the Accord in fifth. The Prius didn't break into the ten biggest sellers in the US last year. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2014 Honda Accord V6 Touring: Review View 42 Photos News Source: LA TimesImage Credit: Copyright 2015 Drew Phillips / AOL Green Honda Toyota Car Buying Hatchback Hybrid Sedan sales California hybrid sales toyota prius c