Toyota Motor Corp. first learned in 2008 about a defect in power-window switches that last week prompted it to recall 7.43 million vehicles worldwide for fire hazards, according to documents filed with U.S. regulators. Toyota, based in Toyota City, Japan, received a report in September 2008 from the U.S. about “an unusual smell” from the power-window master switch and “thermal damage” to the swi...

Honda Motor Co. president Takanobu Ito forecast growth over the next two to three years will be led by sales of its range of new Fit vehicles as Japan’s third- biggest automaker expands in emerging markets. “We will see the good uplifting effect from the Fit series,” Ito, 59, said Friday in an interview at his Tokyo office, where Honda’s spaceman-like Asimo robot greets visitors by name. “So aro...

Import brands set to fuel competition in compact car market Hyundai Motor’s flagship compact Avante has never lost its top-seller position in the nation’s small family car segment in the past 12 years. The Avante sold 81,256 units in the first nine months of this year, making up more than 60 percent of compact car sales here. However, the game seems to be changing in the second half of the yea...

Martin Tangney has a vision that combines romantic historical and cultural images of Scotland with a business of the future: He wants to turn the waste from making whisky into fuel for vehicles. “The beauty is its simplicity,” says Tangney, 47, founder of Celtic Renewables Ltd., an Edinburgh-based company that grew out of his research work as director of the Biofuel Research Centre at Edinburgh ...

Design chief hints new Genesis will become a game-changer It was on a rare occasion that Hyundai Motor’s design center opened its doors to the media. To enter the guarded facility, visitors are required to pass through two checkpoints. At the first one, all identification cards and laptops are submitted, while security stickers seal shut the cameras, including those in mobile phones. Security ...

Daimler AG and Porsche AG provided evidence that the worst European car market in 17 years has started to spread to the luxury brands, mirroring a broader recession that has spilled from southern Europe to Germany. Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler said yesterday that operating profit at Mercedes-Benz Cars will fall this year, lowering a previous target of matching the 2011 figure, while Porsche ...

Hyundai Motor India has recorded a year-on-year increase for the 12th consecutive year aided by the subcompact i10, which took the title of India’s bestselling model in 2009 and 2010. Further, Hyundai Motor India was also the subcontinent’s largest exporter of automobiles, having shipped more than 247,000 vehicles to 120 countries. The Indian plant has produced the Santro (a localized model of ...

A group of 96 U.S. congressmen helping children suffering from cancer presented the star-spangled banner which had been hung in the Capitol in Washington D.C. to Hyundai Motor Co., in appreciation of the Korean carmaker’s support for the campaign, company officials said on Friday. Hyundai Motor is currently the only private company that the U.S. organization Childhood Cancer Caucus has invited f...

It’s smaller than a golf cart, runs on electricity and will probably soon be road-legal. The ultracompact is set to be Japan’s first new vehicle niche in 50 years and an opportunity for the likes of Yoshiro Sugimoto. Town EV, Sugimoto’s startup, plans to have the 800,000 yen ($10,000) ZEVe ultracompact on the market in Japan next year. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance,” said Sugimoto, 62, a...