Well, not really. Today they announced they will buy 8.7% of FHI, which owns subaru. Toyota rally car? maybe.

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com...m.asp?id=15366

 

Tease! :p

 

it's gonna be interesting... corporate takeover??

 

toyota rally cars:




:p

 

Maybe Toyota can help take some of the ugly out of the new Subaru lineup.

 

yes, take out some subaru ugly, and insert some toyota boredom, wonderful :o

 

Yes, yes, there not in WRC though

 

Or, Subaru injecting some excitment into toyota boredom :D

 

Thought that was what Scion was supposed to do....

Because a card board box on 4 wheels is really exciting!!!!!11!one :o

 

I wonder if this has anything to do with the new battery Subaru's parent company recently developed. The one that can charge to 90% within only 5 minutes. If Toyota is seriously going to mass produce hybrids, a 5-minute charging battery would give them a great selling point over other hybrids. Once charging stations start showing up at gas stations, you could realistically quit using gasoline altogether (but you still have a generator onboard, for places that only sell gas). And once charging stations are everywhere, you just dump the gas engine and sell cars that are cheaper, quieter, and more reliable.

edit:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003339.html

124 miles on a 5-minute battery charge? If it's for real, hydrogen cars (and gas and diesel, eventually) will merely be a footnote in the history books, like steam-powered cars of 100 years ago.

 

That's pretty amazing. I still think the other forms of energy will dominate though, only because the gas companies will make more money that way...at least the way I see it. I can't see them charging all that much for electricity, you know? It'll be interesting to see future development though, if they can double the amount of miles on that 5 minute charge... :D

 

Not likely. Diesel has an energy density of roughly 14kWh/kg and a Lithium-ion battery has an energy density of about 0.3kWh/kg. Yes electric motors are more efficient, but not 50 times more efficient.

 

You must also consider the cost of replacement batteries. When you figure that in, the overall cost is more expensive than gas/diesel. Then there's the idea that it's actually cleaner to run electric vehicles when in reality the polution is the same or in some cases worse.

 

You guys need to realize that Toyota didn't buy the stake in Subaru from Subaru. They bought them from GM. Frankly I'd much rather see colaboration between Toyota and Subaru than GM and Subaru. Seems that Subaru feels the same way since they regularly fought colaboration with GM.