Toyota's New Mojomobile
Despite suffering through several recent disasters, both of its own making and at the hands of an angry Gaia, it appears that Toyota ’s mojo remains intact.
Of course, Toyota’s mojo is very different than that of an automaker like Ferrari, Lamborghini or even General Motors. The Japanese giant is at its best when it sticks to designing fuel-efficient family cars targeted at the typical American family and its two point whatever children, not supercars or pickup trucks. Its latest effort is the distillation of this essence into a single car.
The Toyota Prius v is a no-brainer. Take the best-selling hybrid of all time – 52 percent of U.S. sales since the first gas-electric hit the market in 1999, according to Toyota – make it bigger and then . . . whatever the Japanese word is for “voila!” Longer, wider and taller than the hatchback, the “v” stands for “versatile,” not “voila” or the Latin number five, although it is more or less the fifth iteration to carry the Prius name.
Speed Wobble Affects June Car Registrations
The new passenger car market is still impacted by shortages of stock which were affected by the March Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
June registration data shows total new vehicle registrations of 7,875, which was down 1.6% on June 2010; broken down with passenger car registrations of 5,365 (down 7.3%) and commercial vehicles of 2,510 (up 13.2%). "Shortages of stock are still having an effect on the sale of new passenger cars", said Mr Kerr, Chief Executive Officer of the Motor Industry Association. "I am however heartened by the number of vehicles crossing the wharf, in June, which show (from Customs clearance statistics) 1,698 cars arriving from Japan, up from 920 in May - with total clearances for the month of 4,841 cars."
A strong showing at Fieldays and the associated national promotions saw the commercial vehicle sector 13.2% ahead of June 2010 and on a year to date basis (January to June) up 19.3% (1,768 vehicles). Passenger cars were up 3.3% (1,010 vehicles) over the same period.
