There is a significant change in the industry taking place at the moment which harks back to the beginning of the market when companies were investing in each other to try and get a lead in their desired sub-market. Recently Motoring Weekly discussed the investment made by Honda in GM’s Cruise Automation division that followed a similar investment by SoftBank - who have a … [Read more...]
Toyota Has Upsized Its Hyper Efficient Engine
What I find interesting is that the larger vehicle manufacturers are still developing the internal combustion engine. Clearly development has been ongoing for decades despite the recent desire of several Governments to ban them - which is something that I feel is shortsighted. I still think that there are a market for this type of power unit with oil or vegetable based … [Read more...]
James Atkinson
The name James Atkinson can be found in science, literary and engineering - actually at least three different people! The engineer (one of many it seems) is the focus of this article. Atkinson was born in 1846 in Lancashire in the north of England into a family of engineers - his grandfather owned the Hope Foundry that made many steam locomotives. As a young man, he went to … [Read more...]
Magna Steyr to Build New Sports Cars
I read a report that Magna Steyr would be contracted to build two new sports cars that are being jointly developed by Toyota and BMW. There have been reports for many months about the Toyota Supra coming back to market and this most recent report now suggests that it will be built in Europe as opposed to Japan. The concept Supra was showcased at the Geneva International … [Read more...]
Toyota Group Air Bag Recall
I’ve written a lot about the Takata Air Bag recall that is ongoing and the last post was about the Federal Government in Australia demanding a full recall, which in a way was a good thing, however like many Government initiatives, didn’t consider all the facts. Toyota has announced a recall for air bags that also includes several Lexus models - where similar components are … [Read more...]
