Japan

This week, Toyota Motor Corp. started selling its Aqua hybrid-electric compact car in Japan as the world's biggest hybrid-vehicle maker looks to build upon the success of its Prius with a smaller, more efficient variant. The Aqua, which is about the size of a Toyota Yaris, has a base price ...

Electric cars and the act of hooning wouldn't ostensibly be something you'd think would go well together. But then that's what they said about EVs and racing. With the Leaf NISMO RC, Nissan is setting out to prove those assumptions wrong. The company brought its electric racer to the Motorsports ...

The Holy Grail of electric vehicle technology is coming soon, according to Japanese news outlet Nikkei. The Holy Grail, at least for now, is solid-state battery technology. Nikkei reports that Toyota, along with partners Tokyo Institute of Technology and High Energy Accelerator Research ...

Over on its Japanese site, Honda is currently teasing three upcoming hybrids, including an exclusive Insight hatchback dubbed – are you ready for this? – Insight Exclusive. A formal announcement from Honda regarding the trio of hybrid is expected to come soon. In the meantime, here's ...

The 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid will start its global journey in three month's time. Word is the Prius Plug-in will launch in Japan in January of 2012 and hit dealerships across Europe around the same time. Toyota is expected to price the Prius Plug-in Hybrid at around three million yen ...

SkyActiv for the win, says Mazda Motor with the Japanese launch of the facelifted Axela (known overseas as the Mazda3). The updated Axela is Mazda's second model in Japan to feature the automaker's groundbreaking SkyActiv technology; the first was the recently launched Mazda Demio (Mazda2). ...

News outlet Nikkei reports that Japan-based steelmakers and chemical firms are developing materials and components that will make vehicles significantly lighter. The reason? Putting an end to Japanese automakers procuring components from rivals overseas. These innovative lightweight materials ...

After a four-plus-year hiatus, Honda will resume production of minicars (a.k.a. Kei cars, vehicles with engine displacements of 660 cc or less) for Japan. Coming first for the Honda line-up is a yet-to-be unveiled wagon-type minivehicle that's scheduled to roll off the lines this ...

Over in Japan, Toyota Motor just launched the Pixis Space, the automaker's first-ever passenger minivehicle sold with a Toyota badge and the microvan will soon arrive at more than 200 Toyota dealerships nationwide. Toyota says the Pixis Space, a rebadged Daihatsu Move Conte, has been designed to ...

Cumulative sales in Japan of Toyota's Prius hybrid topped the one-million mark last month, the Japanese automaker announced on Monday. Domestically, sales of the Prius hit 1.02 million units as of the end of August. Toyota launched the eco-friendly Prius hatchback in December 1997 in Japan and ...