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Toyota NA CEO says his excitement for hydrogen sedan is rising

Toyota has an undeniable vested interest in seeing its hydrogen sedan succeed when it goes on sale in the US next year, so it's no surprise that the company's North American CEO, Jim Lentz, says that he's got more hope for the car now than ever before. And if we remember ways that others in the company, like Bob Carter, have loudly sung hydrogen's praises, we have to assume that positivity is running awful high in Torrance. In fact, Lentz said that the US side of the company is far more excited by the H2 car than colleagues in Japan. Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's ECO:nomics conference in Santa Barbara, CA this week, Lentz said: After we've seen the product, understand its range, its driving dynamics, its refueling, we're a lot more bullish than Japan - probably about fivefold more bullish. It's just a question of how many can be produced now. Well, we've driven this car, and we still feel that Toyota is placing a big bet on the technology. One important issue is cost, but Lentz would not say exactly how much the car costs to make or what it will be priced at. He did say, though, that the production cost has dropped by 95 percent from the $1 million price tag the car wore ten years ago. That hints at a production cost of around $50,000. Lentz also said he thinks it will take at least a decade for hydrogen vehicles to hit sales of 500,000 per year in the US. Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: Their acceptance could get off to a quicker start than the hybrids did. I think you're going to see a lot more marketing of the concept of fuel cell much sooner than you did for hybrids, because basically the whole industry is behind it.

Lexus tops JD Power Vehicle Dependability Study again, Buick bests Toyota

It shouldn't surprise anyone, but Lexus has once again taken the top spot in JD Power's Vehicle Dependability Study. That'd be the Japanese luxury brand's fourth straight year at the top of table. The big news, though, is the rise of Buick. General Motor's near-premium brand beat out Toyota to take second place, with 110 problems per 100 vehicles compared to Toyota's 111 problems. Lexus owners only reported 89 problems per 100 vehicles. Besides Buick's three-position jump, Scion enjoyed a major improvement, jumping 13 positions from 2014. Ram and Mitsubishi made big gains, as well, moving up 11 and 10 positions, respectively. In terms of individual segments, GM and Toyota both excelled, taking home seven segment awards each. The study wasn't good news for all involved, though. A number of popular automakers finished below the industry average of 147 problems per 100 vehicles, including Subaru, (157PP100), Volkswagen (165PP100), Ford/Hyundai (188PP100 each) and Mini (193PP100). The biggest losers (by a tremendous margin, we might add) were Land Rover and Fiat, recording 258 and 273 problems per 100 vehicles. The next closest brand was Jeep, with 197PP100. While the Vehicle Dependability Study uses the same measurement system as the Initial Quality Survey, the two metrics analyze very different things. The VDS looks at problems experienced by original owners of model year 2012 vehicles over the past 12 months, while the oft-quoted IQS focuses on problems in the first 90 days of new-vehicle ownership. Like the IQS, though, the VDS has a rather broad definition of what a problem is. Because of that, a low score from JD Power is no guarantee of extreme unreliability, so much as just poor design. In this most recent study, the two most reported problems focused on Bluetooth connectivity and the voice-command systems. The former leaves plenty of room for user error due to poor design (particularly true of the Bluetooth systems on the low-scoring Fords, Volkswagens and Subarus), while the second is something JD Power has already confirmed as being universally terrible. That makes means that while these studies are important, they shouldn't be taken as gospel when it comes to automotive reliability. News Source: JD PowerImage Credit: Copyright 2015 Jeremy Korzeniewski / AOL Buick Fiat Ford GM Hyundai Jeep Land Rover Lexus MINI Mitsubishi RAM Scion Subaru Toyota Volkswagen Auto Repair Ownership study

eBay Find of the Day: Back To The Future Marty McFly 1985 Toyota SR5 pickup tribute

With DeLorean time machine replicas thick on the ground, it was only a matter of time before someone started recreating the other vehicles in the McFly garage. At the end of the first Back to the Future movie, Marty returns to 1985 to find his sweet-looking Toyota SR5 truck all waxed and ready for his date. That truck always did look great in the movie, and now's your chance to own this close facsimile.
This Back to the Future replica Toyota is on eBay with a price of $14,500, which the seller claims is half of what's been invested. Perhaps that's true, but it's still a nearly 30-year-old truck that's covered 280,000 miles. The seller does say the 22RE engine has been recently rebuilt, along with the rest of the drivetrain, and there's new paint, too. The attention to detail is admirable, and if you've always admired Marty's '80s-chic 4x4, now's your chance to own it.