Honda Motor Co.’s choice to build what it calls a racing-oriented “supercar” in Ohio highlights confidence in its U.S. engineers and plants. It also shows the difficulty of producing autos in Japan as the yen rises.
When the high-performance hybrid Acura NSX goes on sale within three years, it will be the most expensive and technologically advanced car ever built in the U.S. by an Asian or European automaker. Ohio will be the sole global production site for the car, and executives suggest will sell for more than $100,000.
“This is a …

The Tokyo Motor Show kicks off Saturday amid a variety of challenges facing the automobile industry, including intensifying global competition, the yen’s historic surge and supply disruptions caused by natural disasters.
For Japanese automakers, emerging rivals in South Korea and other Asian countries have joined the ranks of long-standing competitors such as General Motors of the U.S. and Volkswagen AG of Germany.
The yen’s record rise has also cut into repatriated profits and eroded Japanese makers’ competitiveness overseas.
Read the rest of the story: Motor show opens with car firms facing triple whammy.

The strong yen is forcing Toyota Motor and Nissan Motor to consider changes in production plans and alliance strategies, the top executives of both Japanese automakers said Thursday.
The yen, which hit a record high against the dollar in late October, has undercut profits for Toyota and Nissan, which both build vehicles in Japan for overseas markets.
To offset the strong yen, Toyota may “deepen alliances” with suppliers and dealers, Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, said during the opening of a Toyota plant in Mississippi that will build Corolla cars now being …

For a brief moment, following Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami, there were fears this year’s Tokyo Motor Show might not happen. It didn’t help that even before the disaster most foreign manufacturers said they’d pull out of the event citing routinely weak import car sales.
The biennial even is back on the calendar, it turns out, and when it opens its doors, early next month, the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show will do what it is often best known for: showcase some of the wildest and wacky concept vehicles ever put …

Toyota Motor Corporation is rolling out a new series of commercials based on the popular manga and anime “Doraemon.” The commercials will be partly live-action, and the first one, which begins airing this Friday, features actor Tsumabuki Satoshi 30 as Nobita and mixed martial artist Ogawa Naoya 43 as Gian.The story for the commercials is set 20 years after the anime series. The first commercial, titled “Nobita, 30-sai,” starts with an animated scene where Nobita and Gian talk about their dreams for the future. It then switches to a live-action …

With the fear of losing power during a trip holding back many consumers from purchasing an electric vehicle, Nissan has discovered a new charging method that could get drivers back on the road in minutes.
Announced earlier this week, Nissan has designed new battery technology for electric vehicles that cuts charging time from eight hours down to just ten minutes to fully recharge the battery. Assuming electric vehicle charging stations become more widespread across the United States, a driver could potentially take a long-distance trip from New York City to Los …

Japan’s Tokai University won the 3000km World Solar Challenge car race through Australia’s desert today in a tight contest marred by wildfires and an explosion.
Team Tokai crossed the finish line in Adelaide this afternoon to claim back-to-back victories in the event, last held in 2009.
The Japanese team narrowly beat the Netherlands’ Nuon Solar in the race from Darwin, which started on Sunday.
Read the rest of the story: Japanese university crew wins 3000km Australian solar car race.

Toyota has not been seen in high profile racing since the end of 2009, when it pulled the plug on Formula 1 racing. That year, the motor company booked a net loss of 436.9 billion yen $4.4 billion, which was its first annual net loss since 1950.Toyota must sell cars, and the most efficient marketing tool is racing. The bottom line is that racing sells cars and green technology.The Japanese giant has combined the two and announced its return to the most prestigious endurance race in the world, Le …

Subaru plans to introduce turbocharging, new transmissions, and hybrid drivetrains in a bid to boost its fleetwide fuel efficiency 30 percent between 2010 and 2015.
The technology blitz also includes a new, lightweight vehicle platform that will be introduced by 2015 and will replace the platform now used for all Subaru nameplates.
Motohisa Miyawaki, head of product planning and engineering, said there will be one full model change each year from 2012 through 2015 on top of this year’s introduction of the XV small crossover in Japan and next year’s debut of …

Toyota Motor Corp., Asia’s biggest carmaker, may expand production outside Japan as the yen’s gains on currency markets reduce earnings.“We are struggling,” Chief Financial Officer Satoshi Ozawa said today in an interview at the automaker’s factory in Ovar, Portugal. “We are facing a difficult time. We have to reduce our production costs to compensate for the currency situation,” and that may involve shifting manufacturing from the home market of Japan “to some extent.”The euro’s decline since April to a decade low against the yen this month is reducing export earnings …