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Toyota's Psy-style Waku-Doki ad inherits Japan's bizarre ad crown

A new Japanese Toyota ad featuring crisply suited businessmen driving into the jungle only to segue into a Psy-style music-video dance-off with a gorilla and natives is the latest car commercial to go viral. Jungle Wakudoki is the newest installment in a grand tradition of bizarre ads from the island nation that are by turns hilarious, head-scratching and occasionally even frightening.
Let's face it: My people are weird.
I'm half-Japanese and take suitable pride in my Asian roots, but even I can't figure out what's been slipped into the water coolers of the country's ad agencies much of the time - or the nation at large, for that matter. From Japan's ubiquitous obsession with all things adorable (kawaii) to its offbeat sense of humor and its bizarrely perverse and violent tentacle porn, it's clear there's a lot going on in the culture, and only some of it bubbles up to the surface in its marketing efforts. Much of the strangest and most amazing ads are for non-transportation products (e.g. laundry soap, snacks, energy drinks), but the automotive space has its fair share. This latest Toyota ad had me trawling YouTube for a common theme, trying to make sense of why these spots are the way they are. Scroll down to watch the Toyota ad in question as well as a bunch of other examples of Japan's most bizarre car-related ads and see if you can't find the thread that runs between them. Is it just that something's being lost in translation? Have your say in Comments.

NHTSA releases updated Takata airbag recalled cars list, but it still has errors

Unfortunately, the government's list still contains errors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued an updated list of vehicle models that it's urging owners to repair under the mushrooming Takata airbag inflator recall. The latest version adds vehicles from new automakers like Subaru and Ford that are missing from the original announcement, and it also removes erroneous entries from General Motors, leaving only the 2005 Saab 9-2X (a reskinned Subaru WRX), and the 2003-2005 Pontiac Vibe, a joint project with Toyota.

Toyota still wants Tesla's battery help, still evaluating RAV4 EV program

Tesla Motors said earlier this month that the agreement it has with Toyota to supply battery packs for the Toyota RAV4 EV SUV would be finished by the end of the year. The deal is done, but Toyota is now singing its best version of Baby, Please Don't Go. The Japanese automaker may look to extend the battery-pack agreement with California-based Tesla, Automotive News says, citing comments made by Osamu Nagata, who heads Toyota's manufacturing and engineering in North America. Nagata also complimented Tesla for its "clear business strategy." Toyota, which owns 2.5 percent of Tesla, started the RAV4 EV collaboration in 2012, in which Tesla was to make about 2,600 battery packs for the all-electric SUV. That agreement was estimated to be worth about $100 million. "We are also evaluating the RAV4 EV program and will have more to say at a later date" – Toyota "We have a good relationship with Tesla and will evaluate the feasibility of working together on future projects," Toyota said in a statement e-mailed to AutoblogGreen. "We are also evaluating the RAV4 EV program and will have more to say at a later date." And while Toyota hasn't quite met initial sales expectations – it sold about 1,600 of the RAV4 EVs through this spring – the company expects to reach 2,500 by the end of the year. And the partnership did generate about $15 million in revenue for Tesla, according to that company's first-quarter letter to shareholders. That said, Tesla is obviously focusing its battery-making efforts on its own models.