Toyota possibly coming back to the race scene

Actually it would be more like a hot girl saying that she would consider dating you but she doesn't. It's a cock tease!

Toyota possibly coming back to the race scene

So i read this on AutoBlog Today. It is the first article that I've seen that may lead to Toyota coming back to the sport cars scene. If they do, I believe my predictions for like 3 years ago will be correct. They will be the first to really dive into hybrid tuning sports cars..

Article:
Toyota did so well for so long with its sports cars and sporty cars that it's a wonder they gave up the market. Now it seems they're asking themselves the same question. Kazuo Okamoto, executive VP of R&D, said the company wants to try sports cars again, citing the need to build "more appealing products" with a dash more "fun to drive" factored in.

Now that the MR2 is officially retired, it is difficult to believe that Toyota will leave its sports car cred (and cash) on the table for Lexus to mop up. While not admitting any concrete plans to build such a car, Toyota's been teasing folks with the FT-HS since it was revealed at Detroit earlier this year. If they actually do turn it into a Supra -- and a hybrid one at that -- we, for one, would be delighted to see something slow down the Camry-ization of Toyota's lineup.

[Source: Auto Week]

Link to Article

The word hybrid and sports car does not go hand in hand. The POS electric motor and battery pack would screw up the power to weight ratio so badly. And Toyota is already in the "race scene," don't forget about the Camry and Tundra in Nascarap.

supra!

This better not be a hoax or I'll get mad! haha

well it has also been my prediction that Toyota will come back anyway but not until 2009 or 2010. This just might be one of those news thats saying "well we could do this and make it look good but we're not going to yet".

When Prodrive made their Subaru P2 and basically said "look what we can do, but we're not going to make it", it pissed me off and made me depressed at the same time.

this is just as bad as a girlfriend dumping you for no reason

damn it I want flying cars like in Back to the Future 2 where the wheels fold and the car hovers and instead of the flux capacitor, put in some dilithium crystals and travel in warp speeds.

I just want a new 86

i wish they came back with the coronas...lol 2DR!!!!

i would disagree. More and more technology is coming out to where hybrid tuning can be possible. eventually, you'll see hybrids that don't even use gas and would be mostly electric and may hydro power or solar power with 0-60 times of 4 seconds on a economy car like the corolla. hehe.

I try to stay up to date with technology and thats kinda what i'm seeing for our future.

go find those 86's that went back into production for a little bit back in 99 or 2000. The factory I know made only a few but they did sell it. anyone heard of this?

oh well.. i see your point. i'm still going to bet on hybrid tuning as the next big thing in the automotive industry.

But what would be better, a light weight battery or no battery at all? Hybrid is one of the most inefficient technologies ever for performance and not very efficient in terms of fuel efficiency either. Hybrids that dont use gas but only electric would be a electric car. Hydrogen Power cars aka HPVs don't rely on a gasoline engine at all (read 1 motor/engine for 1 car). Performance HPVs use combustion as a mean of transforming H2 into work not fuel cells (batteries).

In the end you cannot fight physics and weight is always the enemy, think inertia.. More mass = more work require for acceleration, more weight to stop during braking and more inertia to fight during cornering. Performance Oriented Hybrids? Impossible.

PS The Lexus LX600h gets 20MPG.

lS600.. if it wasn't hybrid, it would have a larger engine to get the same performance and you would see about a 12mpg rate on it. hybrids do make a difference.

even if batteries weigh more, eventually technology will figure out how to make battery cells hold more power and make it weigh less and last longer. Also electricity can give you instant power unlike gasoline engines. I will admit that a 4 cylinder hybrid engine is less efficient in gas than a regular engine but due to electricity, its able to run longer and give you an overall better mpg. for about 5 years now, people have messed with hybrids and their tweaked hybrids are getting 100+mpg with no decrease in performance. If petrol companies didn't have as much control over the auto industry and the government, we would be driving gas alternative cars by now. The technology has been around for almost 2 decades. Its never been able to be mainstream.

The same people has taken the gasoline engine out of the prius to make it entirely electric. I did not say hybrid power cars did not work but it is extremely inefficient. It has been know for some times that the MPG for the prius has been overrated -which has also became a long running joke on topgear. And as you pointed out there is only a 12 MPG increase between the gasoline vs hybrid version of the LS (and lets not forget a ~30k difference in sticker price).

Batteries will weigh less in the future but they will never weigh zero.. as long as you are carrying two fuel sources (battery + gasoline) and two motors (fuel burning gasoline engine + electric motor) which takes terns driving ONE car you will never be able to compare in performance to a car that only has one or the other. As for "instaneous power" - Hybrids switch to the gasoline engine during hard acceleration and utilize the electric motor mostly during cruising speeds and light acceleration.

I am not saying gasoline based cars are the only way to go for performance but I am saying hybrids are not. If you want to end dependance on petrolium you'd need to stop using gasoline all together. You mentioned alternative fuel sources such as Hydrogen Power or electric only along with Ethanol and biodiesel there and so many alternatives that are much better than hybrid vehicles. Not only because they end dependance in petrolium but you are back to using one power source to power one car... which makes a whole lot more sense to me.

I respect your opinion but I'm going to put my money on Hydrogen power cars myself. Arnold signed a bill to build the infrastructure needed for the public to purchase hydrogen more easily by 2010. Apparently we are supposed to see 150-200 new hydrogen stations in CA by then. About a quarter to half the buses and most goverenment vehicles in my area are Hydrogen powered right now so I see it as a real possibility.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but I can't stand when people call the potential new RWD coupe "the new 86". It looks nothing like it, and it's gonna have a POS FE motor in it. Nothing like the old 86. Now, if Toyota made a merely updated version, I'd be all over it.