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Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV

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Like any other Small Utility Vehicle, Toyota Highlander packs in a lot of space. It is therefore a comfortable vehicle for people with large families or more than 2-3 children. The Hybrid version of Toyota Highlander has people extremely interested in buying this vehicle for its economical performance.

Toyota is the first automobile manufacturer to introduce both types of vehicles, sedan and SUVs in the market. Typically like any other Hybrid car the Toyota Highlander gives a lot more mileage than an average SUV would give per gallon of gas.

This SUV gives a less noisy ride like the other Hybrid cars combined with 4 wheel drive and a higher height ride. This SUV is powered by new version of Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive. Therefore, the SUVs engine is 3.3 liter V6 engine combined with a high torque electric drive motor generator.

This new motor/generator operates at a high speed and gives more power to the engine. This combines with the engine produces power up to 3500 pounds. Due to this the Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV is rated as SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle).

The Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV averages up to 27.6 miles per gallon on gas.

The tank capacity therefore will give you 600 miles per fill-up of gas.

Like the other Toyota manufactured vehicles, this vehicle also has similar utilities provided to it including the navigational system which remains optional in this model also.

For people who like to go for long distance travels using their SUVs, this car also provides with a facility to put a sunroof. This is an added feature not existing in any other Toyota automobiles.

Due to the high demand for this vehicle, the chances that you would get price cuts are less. Though there might not be a long waiting list, if wanting to buy from the readily available Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUVs there is limited choice.

This 7 passenger hybrid SUV therefore is quite a steal, from fuel economy, to ecological welfare, this SUV passes all the tests that anyone might require from their SUV. The Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV also has the Bluetooth and a large music system features that a generation next vehicle will possess.

So, if interested in an SUV you can surely check out the Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV. It is priced and designed for better economy usage than any other car.

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Source by Ujwala Bapat

The Toyota Motor Story – How Was Lexus Born?

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It was more than a philosophical matter for Toyota Motor because of the money involved. The company, while comfortably in the black, could ill afford to pursue a misguided vanity project. But some argued it stood to lose more from staying out of the luxury market than by jumping in when its most loyal customers – baby boomers – were moving into their peak earning years and would soon be looking to buy more expensive cars. Toyota Motor wanted a high-end product line to prevent these loyal customers from defecting to other brands. The idea was to build a gilded bridge between the compact-car buyers of today and the luxury-car buyers of tomorrow. What’s more, it also needed to safeguard its revenue in an era of increased U.S. import barriers, to stay neck-and-neck with Japanese rivals who were planning their own luxury lines, and to keep its engineers motivated with new challenges.

At home, it sold the stately Century, a boat of a car with a 5.0-liter V-12 engine, used to chauffeur Japanese CEOs and cabinet ministers around the crowded streets of Tokyo. The often empty front passenger seat on this and other Japanese luxury cars was built with a removable cushion so that the back-seat passenger could stretch his legs through to the front seat. But at the equivalent of US$125,000, the car was deemed too expensive to compete in the mass luxury market in the U.S. Besides, Toyota Motor needed to update its export line-up with a car-lover’s car designed primarily to be driven by its owner, not a stately limousine to be driven around in.

Most significantly, Toyota Motor sensed opportunity. Present manufacturers of high end vehicles had risen and gone beyond the needs of the brand new era of car purchasers. Hence, Eiji Toyoda presented the strategy to penetrate towards the high end market. 6 years along with 50 percent of a billion dollars later, the initial Lexus was born. To Toyoda, it was not a matter of cost, only a matter of time. In his words: “For us, this was not only a tremendous challenge and a dream to fulfill but also an inevitable decision.” Yet even the most zealous proponents of a Japanese luxury-car program in the early 1980s could scarcely imagine what Toyota Motor would unleash upon unsuspecting rivals a decade later.

The company’s luxury division, the Lexus brand, has grown from a car enthusiast’s afterthought into the leading luxury brand in the U.S. It usurped Cadillac for that title in 2000 and has kept it ever since. In its debut year in 1989, sales of the untested brand’s two models – the flagship LS and entry-level ES sedans – totaled just 16,302 cars. Two years later it became the best-selling luxury import in the U.S. and had added a third model, the SC coupe. Today, just over two decades since the brand debuted, millions of vehicles sporting the Lexus L are being driven on the roads of America, a testimony not only to the brand’s popularity but also the durability of its cars. Indeed, it is not uncommon to see a vintage 1990 model year LS 400 or ES 300. Today, Lexus has expanded from the first two pioneer models to an industry-leading fleet of nearly a dozen different cars and SUBs, three of which have been added within the past two years.

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Source by Ken Li

Three Toyota Facilities: Celebrating Milestones In The US

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In the United States, three Toyota facilities are currently celebrating the company’s milestones in the country. Included in their celebration is the 20th year anniversary of the company’s first wholly owned US facility. This first wholly owned facility in the US for the Toyota Motor Corporation is the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (or also popularly known as TMMK). Along with that, two other Toyota facilities are celebrating a decade of operations. These two other facilities are the Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia (TMMWV) and the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana (TMMI).

So who are celebrating with these three Toyota facilities? Sure enough, the local officials in their respective areas would be joining in the whole celebration. Team members in their respective communities would be also there to be part of the celebrations. TMMK would be celebrating with Georgetown, Kentucky, TMMI with Princeton, Indiana, and TMMWV with Buffalo West Virginia. These facilities would be celebrating over the next couple of days.

All in all, these three Toyota facilities have around 13,000 people employed. They also do represent around $8.8 billion in investment. After all, these plants build various Toyota vehicles and engines that are sold in the automobile market. The TMMK builds the Camry, Avalon, Solara, and some engines. TMMI builds the Tundra, Sequoia, and Sienna. And as per the TMMWV, this plant produces engines and transmission systems for the Corolla, Matrix, Camry, Sienna, and Lexus RX350.

Seiichi Sudo, the president of Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing (TEMA) in Toyota’s North America operations, “The success of TMMK’s team members and suppliers certainly paved the way for expansion throughout North American over the last 20 years.” Indeed, each of these plants’ anniversaries is worth celebrating.

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Source by Mark Clarkson

Lean 5s – Implement the Foundation of Toyota Motor Corporation Success Into Your Organization

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The Japanese 5s system is an essential and powerful tool of the Toyota Production System.

The 5s concept is a simple system that your organization cannot afford not to implement. Save time, save money and avoid mistakes and defects. Whether you are interested in 5s lean manufacturing, 5s office or 5s housekeeping, you can enjoy endless rewards with 5s implementation.

FACT:

GM production was 3 – 4 x the cost of production at TMC

Why? Efficiency. Adopt the tools of TMC and save yourself a whole lot of money and hardship.

BACKGROUND TO JAPANESE 5S

5s comes from 5 words in Japanese which mean orderliness (seiri), neatness (seiton), shine (seiso), cleanliness (seiketsu) and discipline (shitsuke). In English, lean 5s:

1. Sort

2. Set in Order

3. Shine

4. Standardize

5. Sustain (maintain the discipline to continue with the process)

THE BENEFITS

A good lean 5s program ensures:

  • A Better, safer working environment
  • Improved efficiency
  • Elimination of waste and unnecessary items
  • Reduced defects and machine breakdowns
  • Less stress and frustration

SUCCESS

“Every day, our priority is 2s.” says the manager of a successful plant of a Toyota supplier in Japan. “With a good 2s (sort and set in order), we easily prevent accidents, create an efficient environment, avoid clutter, save time when locating items, and maintain employee motivation. We easily avoid unnecessary expenses and can identify waste that needs to be eliminated. Good 5s is the starting point for good kaizen.”

WHY YOU NEED 5S

Now here’s a great example of why your organization needs 5s: A design engineer at a manufacturing company I was working in had some bad news. He found out that his mistake had cost the company $9,700! How did that happen? Well, his office was, as many are, disorganized. One day, he grabbed a design that was set for production. But he grabbed the wrong one. Production started and it wasn’t until a month later that the problem was uncovered. What a waste in time and money. And how embarrassing.

THE PRINCIPLES

Let’s break each step down:

SORT

In the sorting process, you decide what items are essential to getting the job done. Everything else has got to go.

SET IN ORDER

In the next step, all necessary items must be allocated a home.

SHINE

In this step, all team members engage in a big clean up.

STANDARDIZE

This is an essential step and an absolute necessity in order to ensure long term gains from lean 5s. A regular schedule of the previous 3s activities must be made and put into practice.

SUSTAIN

This can be the tricky part. Again, in order to ensure long lasting results, 5s activity must be on going and the standard practices followed.

In order for organizations to not only survive, but thrive and prosper, a lean mind set and strategy must be adopted. Lean 5s is one of the best and simplest tools I have seen. It just takes the know-how, effort and commitment.

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Source by Angela M Corriero