Porsche 911 930 Turbo 74-83 Square Door Panel Speaker Grill on 2040-parts.com

Toyota's Akio Toyoda flies solo at media event, in change of style

It was as much a change for Akio Toyoda as it was for Toyota Motor Corp. In unveiling the company's new mid-term business plan this week, the media-shy president flew solo at a news conference without the usual safety net of being flanked by his top brass. The move was a departure for Toyoda, who -- in his two years as president -- has tended to divert technical or detailed questions to a panel of executives sharing stage with him.

Video: Autoweek tours the Tesla EV factory

Our own Mark Vaughn recently took a tour of the sprawling California plant where Tesla is gearing up to build as many as 20,000 electric cars per year. Formerly part of the General Motors/Toyota New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. joint venture, the vast space allows huge swaths of factory floor--all newly painted--between each of the machines.

Kia KV7 Gullwing Concept at Detroit

The Kia KV7 Concept - will show at the 2011 Detroit Motor Show We’ve got used in recent years to the Koreans - in the guise of Hyundai and Kia – presenting more and more credible concepts which go on to become equally credible production versions. So the news that Kia are taking a new concept to the Detroit Motor Show in January – the Kia KV7 Concept - is something we should probably take quite seriously as a pointer to a new model. The fact that Kia allude to the production versions of cars like the Kia Soul and Kia Sportage being close in style to the concepts that preceded them in their press release on the KV7 also makes it an extremely strong possibility that the KV7 Concept is pointing to a new model from Kia.