Japanese Car News

[kmeeg]

41 minutes ago, iRage said:

First of the Lexus F Sport Performance Line

Finally got to see official images of the IS F Sport Performance (i.e IS500)
Nice to see a V8 back in an IS 💕

This is the first time a F Sport has gotten a performance upgrade making it more like an actual F. Thus the F Sport Performance I suppose. 

(All this time F Sports have been mainly cosmetic with minor suspension and chassis tweaks)

 

 

Interesting to see Toyota trying to get in to sports car track. (With a disappointment of Supra been a BMW other than the Toyota badge). Wonder if IS getting 100% Toyota engine or got help from Yamaha like the Lexus LFA engine (4.8L V10 with redline from 9000-10000rpm).

[iRage]

6 hours ago, kmeeg said:

Wonder if IS getting 100% Toyota engine or got help from Yamaha like the Lexus LFA engine

Well....Toyota's patneship since the mid 1960s has been that Yamaha co-designs and co-develops engine Toyota engine heads. Toyota designs the block and Yamaha the head....has been like that even for the little 1NZ-FE engine and many others...in some cases like some V6 engines Yamaha builds it in one of their factories. So Toyota using Yamaha for engines is like Ferrari or someone using Pinninfarina for a design.

The new IS500 has an updated 2UR-GSE engine....that engine's head...like 99% of Toyota's normal engines and 100% of TOyota's sports engines was designed by Yamaha.

As for the Supra....no matter who built it...cannot deny the fact that it is still a pretty damn nice car. Besides...if Toyota had done a ground up development of the new Supra it would have costed as much as a LFA...and we wouldn't have cars like this nor the GR Yaris  

[iRage]

All new Lexus NX...Acidentally leaked !

It was already known that the car would be based on the GA-K platform (shared with everything from the Camry to the RAV4) and laced with the "Lexus Driving Signature".

The car seems to be bigger than the out going model. Design wise we see a lot of queues we have seen on newer Lexus models, so nothing new in terms of design except for the "TAZUNA INTERIOR CONCEPT"...hmmm. As for power trains...well...the usual Lexus ones I suppose. Well...YAWN...

But C'MON !!!...are we to REALLY beleive that Lexus "Accidentally" leaked this ?
My 5 year old daughter is better at keeping things secret than this...so REALLY ??? We are talking about a group of companies that  have been really really good at reading the market and stringing people along...

https://www.motor1.com/news/490243/2022-lexus-nx-leaked-video/

[MrCat]

Really cant stand that Outlander light design..   New Triton/L200`s got a similar face.. 

Hyundai does the same with Kona and Palisade..   Timeless car design is a thing of the past eh.. They all just go with the flow (i.e. new Mercedes exterior designs are mostly not distinctively Mercedes like the past..) OR just try to be different (i.e. Hyundai Kona?) and create designs that`ll perhaps look fresh for like 5 years..  🙄

 

 

[iRage]

30 minutes ago, MrCat said:

Really cant stand that Outlander light design..   New Triton/L200`s got a similar face.. 

They call it the Mitsubishi Shield face  

30 minutes ago, MrCat said:

(i.e. new Mercedes exterior designs are mostly not distinctively Mercedes like the past..)

exactly ! the C look slike a cut down E for those who cannot afford an E....in the past each had its own flare...now..nada...

Some of the Alfas are still nice looking though....Thought Nissan was starting to do something different and then they went and did some wierd stuff on something that could have been classically elegant. Toyotas look like animated characters from their Toyota-ville...well..actually they are...so they look like wierd marine creatures (Aqua looks like a blow fish) and cuddly mammals (so many Toyotas look like Capabbaras)

[iRage]

Honda, KTM and PIaggio join up to standardize batteries and insfrastructure with the hope reducing costs, extending range and services.

https://www.honda.co.jp/news/2021/2210301.html

[iRage]

A40 series RAV4 (this was not sold in Japan) gets investigated for potential fire threat

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/3/1/us-investigating-engine-fires-in-nearly-2m-toyota-rav4-suvs

Since it is early stages of the investigation the total number effected is equated to the told number of vehicles sold as is the typical case(in this case the US). Usually as the investigation goes on the number typically reduces as the issue can get pin pointed to certain compoenents used in certain time periods, specs. After the whole uninteded acceleration debacle way back then, Toyota has been pretty proactive about recalls (even before the NTSB says anything); but in this case they seemed to be a bit more quiet (I suppose 11 out of 1.9mil is not yet statistically significant ?)

[Dee Jay]

Honda today unveiled a part self-driving (Level-03) car in the form of a Honda Legend. Honda seems to be the first to market with this level of automation in Japan.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-autonomous-legend-idUSKBN2AW0TZ

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Honda-launches-world-s-first-level-3-self-driving-car

 

[iRage]

10 hours ago, Dee Jay said:

Honda seems to be the first to market with this level of automation in Japan.

Yes..but no....Yes..theoretically..Honda is the first commercially available Level 3 car.　However, the first was Nissan's ProPilot 2.0 which appeared in 2019. Only hitch was that back in 2019 the Japanese law did not allow for the system to be legally classified as Level 3. At first the law was such that the speed had to be really really low...then they changed it to single lanve raods below 30kmph...then it went up to 50 or 60. Then there is this law that the driver needs to be holding the steering wheel at all times (yes...you know that thing we all do of not holding the steering wheel when driving ? That can get your license suspended in Japan)...and the law allowed autonomous vehicles to have their drivers not holding the steering wheel only for a few seconds....then last year it changed to non-steering wheel holding for longer periods of time with conditions. In fact Tesla's autopilot was not licensed to be used in full form in Japan till late last year

It is just that Honda was the first to maket a car after the regulations started easing up. So it is a bit of Honda capitalizing on some marketing opportunity and semantics.

https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/OVERVIEW/propilot.html

https://www.electronicdesign.com/markets/automotive/article/21808494/electronic-design-nissan-debuts-level-3-selfdriving-tech 

[Dee Jay]

21 minutes ago, iRage said:

It is just that Honda was the first to maket a car after the regulations started easing up. So it is a bit of Honda capitalizing on some marketing opportunity and semantics.

Isn't this system more advanced than the Nissan ProPilot 2? 

[iRage]

6 hours ago, Dee Jay said:

Isn't this system more advanced than the Nissan ProPilot 2? 

So far there is nothing to show that it is...only thing is the guidance (hands free) restrictions which Nissan had to leave in due to the regulations at the time of licensing.

[iRage]

On 3/5/2021 at 2:17 PM, Dee Jay said:

Isn't this system more advanced than the Nissan ProPilot 2? 

Okay...so the last week Honda got a bit of slack from the Japanese Auto journalists for claiming that they are the first to be L3 in Japan. Nissan's ProPilot 2.0 does the same things that Honda had mentioned in most of its press media (I suppose they were too busy hyping up the 1st to be in market that they forgot to mention what they did ?)...so he last few days Honda has given a brief as to what seems to be extra or more advanced than what Nissan does.

1. Advanced prediction : Apparently the car can predict the surrounding traffic flow patterns. Not sure if this translates to pre-emptive action. This has mostly been the argument from Japanese authorities in the past...the driver being able to anticipate and take pre-emptive action whilst systems at that time were only able to react to a situation rather than take action to avoid it altogether.

2. In Japanese it translates to "support lane changes and overtaking"..I suppose this can translate to unassisted lane changing and overtaking. Again...the other systems do not let you do that. the other systems, if the driver puts the signal light on it does a lane change provided driver guidance is there.

[Dee Jay]

1 hour ago, iRage said:

2. In Japanese it translates to "support lane changes and overtaking"..I suppose this can translate to unassisted lane changing and overtaking. Again...the other systems do not let you do that. the other systems, if the driver puts the signal light on it does a lane change provided driver guidance is there.

Yes, I looked into videos on both the ProPilot 2.0 and Honda Sensing Elite (the launch video and the subsequent promotional video added above) and it is visible that the Honda system initiates the lane changes on its own without the driver having to press any buttons and without having to put his hands on the steering wheel, which wasn't the case in Nissan ProPilot 2

 

1 hour ago, iRage said:

1. Advanced prediction : Apparently the car can predict the surrounding traffic flow patterns. Not sure if this translates to pre-emptive action. This has mostly been the argument from Japanese authorities in the past...the driver being able to anticipate and take pre-emptive action whilst systems at that time were only able to react to a situation rather than take action to avoid it altogether

So this is what they market as Traffic Jam Pilot then for which they have gotten the regulatory approval last year..?  This should be a pre-emptive system as it encourages the driver to watch a video through the infotainment system while stuck in traffic without having to press any buttons to control the car and keep their hands off the wheel isn't it..?

 

 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Dee Jay

[iRage]

2 minutes ago, Dee Jay said:

So this is what they market as Traffic Jam Pilot then for which they have gotten the regulatory approval last year..?

Yes....they really should come up with a different name for it though.

More than the unassisted lane changing..I beleive what makes it is the prediction...I am pretty convinced that even ProPilot 2 could do unassisted lane changes if it was not locked down (at least in Japan) for human intervention. When driving a Nissan..the only thing the driver actually does is turn the signal light on and it does the change as long as the blind spot indicator shows its clear. However, as it does not have any predictive capability, it simply would not know whether it should do the lane change or not (which is why they had to lock it down anyway).

[Dee Jay]

1 hour ago, iRage said:

Yes....they really should come up with a different name for it though.

More than the unassisted lane changing..I beleive what makes it is the prediction...I am pretty convinced that even ProPilot 2 could do unassisted lane changes if it was not locked down (at least in Japan) for human intervention. When driving a Nissan..the only thing the driver actually does is turn the signal light on and it does the change as long as the blind spot indicator shows its clear. However, as it does not have any predictive capability, it simply would not know whether it should do the lane change or not (which is why they had to lock it down anyway).

Okay so did a bit of searching and came across this site from Honda which documents the functionality of their new system.. This would shed some light on the matter it seems..

https://www.honda.co.jp/hondasensing-elite/function/index.html

The new Vezel is also stated to have an improved version of Honda Sensing and that has something called Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) with traffic jam tracking function.. So wonder if the traffic jam pilot is a further extension of that..

[iRage]

2 hours ago, Dee Jay said:

The new Vezel is also stated to have an improved version of Honda Sensing and that has something called Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) with traffic jam tracking function.. So wonder if the traffic jam pilot is a further extension of that..

The Accord already has it...its pretty much ACC that you get with every other manufacturer. Slows down and accelerates within the speed set by the driver whilst maintaining the safe distance..already set by the driver. Its just a use of fancy words in the case of the Accord. Not sure if there is an updated version and what it might actually do.

Traffic Jam Pilot...again..this is one of the things that Honda was receiving flack about last week. Traffic Jam Pilot just says accelerate, brake and steer in a traffic jam on roads...what exactly does that mean ?

At the end of the day...its all about the level of AI in the car isn't it ? At the moment Honda has not given any strong indication as to what its capabilities are. Even in the link you sent..the only thing that made the lane change different was #3..the ability to determine if a lane change should actually be done and if it can be done. I don't think they are going to be forthcoming with everything either as this 100 unit thing still seems to be a real-world pilot stage for the tech itself (since the vehicle is limited to only 100 units for lease..just like they and Toyota did with the FCVs...)

[Dee Jay]

4 hours ago, iRage said:

I don't think they are going to be forthcoming with everything either as this 100 unit thing still seems to be a real-world pilot stage for the tech itself (since the vehicle is limited to only 100 units for lease..just like they and Toyota did with the FCVs...)

Yes, it seems that they are not ready to go all out with it until the technology is more mature and affordable like you said. Hence, following that lease strategy and limited production unit strategy. Both, Toyota with the FCVs and Honda with this AI rollout seems to be testing out a new car ownership model as well it seems (especially with the new Toyota Mirai ownership scheme) as the vehicles of the future seems to be more tech oriented maintaining them won't be an easy task I guess specially here in Sri Lanka.

[iRage]

1 hour ago, Dee Jay said:

Yes, it seems that they are not ready to go all out with it until the technology is more mature and affordable like you said. Hence, following that lease strategy and limited production unit strategy. Both, Toyota with the FCVs and Honda with this AI rollout seems to be testing out a new car ownership model as well it seems

Yes..almost all of them are moving towards a mobility solution services from mobility products. At the last Tokyo Motorshow Toyota's entire booth had 0 cars...none what so ever...and half the Motorshow was held at their MegaWeb Toyota experience center...it was all robotic cars and transport pods and stuff.
 

[iRage]

Nissan GT-R50 by Italdesign

The final commercial model is at display at Nissan Crossing; Nissan's display showcase right in the middle of Ginza.

With a base price of 990,000Euros the model is at the moment being offered by grey importers in Japan for a whopping 145+mil yen. 

With the engine out of the GT-R GT3 car with larger turbos and forged internals pushing about 715hp, the car has carbon fenders, brakes and seat frames on a bespoke seat made by Recaro. The car has a lower roof line han the R35 but the roof humps on either side give enough clearance for the occupants' heads.
Apparently the car can be ordered in any color where Italdesign themselves would do a rendering so that the buyer can be 100% certain of the color choice. Color choice also includes color schemes and colored livery of old Nissan race cars.

 

[iRage]

Glimpses of the final production version of the new Civic (..well at least the Chinese market variant)

Glad to see they seem to have kept the Prototype design in tact.

Edited March 12, 2021 by iRage

[sathyajithj99]

20 hours ago, iRage said:

Glimpses of the final production version of the new Civic (..well at least the Chinese market variant)

Glad to see they seem to have kept the Prototype design in tact.

Rear end looks like Yaris Ativ.

Front looks like one of the muscle cars like Dodge

Edited March 13, 2021 by sathyajithj99

[iRage]

Honda S660 taking its last bow...

Honda announced a last special specification variant for the S660 Modulo Version Z. 

The S660 will be discontinued in March 2022.

The M ver Z has a special color (seen below) plus some special touches like different colored badges and emblems and stuff inside.

https://www.honda.co.jp/news/2021/4210312-s660.html

[iRage]

A few hours ago Toyota revealed the X Prologue concept.
What was assumed to be an EV crossover ended up being the concept for the new Aygo...
Looks funky...
https://newsroom.toyota.eu/aygo-x-prologue---a-new.../

Edited March 17, 2021 by iRage

[iRage]

To celebrate the lauch of the IS500 F Sport Performance, Lexus-USA released a limited edition (500 cars only) "IS500 F Sport Performance - Launch Edition" over the weekend.

There were some FB Liv streams of the launch weekend held at Sebring...some interesting tit-bits were:

- F Sport Performance Line seems to be a US focussed line up with more vehicles being planned and is highly unlikely it will make it to Asia.

- IS F Sport Perf. seems to have proped up as a result of Lexus USA having a discussion with the Development people in Japan about wanting a performance version of these cars, without having the sign off from Toyoda-san (as he and his team had different plans)

- There is a higher performance edition being planned for by the Japanese side...and we might not have to wait too long for an official word.

 

[iRage]

Production version of the new Z ?
400ZClub forum claims these are leaked images of the final production version of the new Z....
If it is...its nice to see the production version being so close to the Z proto...although I am not a big fan of the huge blank space under the headlights...the chrome/silver grill does make it look better...