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BMW-Toyota joint sports car project is on like Donkey Kong

It's official - there will be a jointly developed sports car from BMW and Toyota. While the two auto giants signed a Memorandum of Understanding that pledged to pursue "joint development of architecture and components for a future sports vehicle" back in June of 2012, in the interim, it has remained unclear how those plans had been progressing. BMW has finally officially confirmed that the German and Japanese manufacturers will be codeveloping a pair of sports cars in addition to pursuing other disciplines including fuel cell systems and lightweight technologies.
"We have agreed on a joint architecture for a sports car. What is important is that there will be two different vehicles that are authentic to the two brands," BMW Development Chief Herbert Diess told Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Reuters is reporting. This is a very, very big step for both brands, but now the speculation can officially begin as to what the products of this agreement will look like.
There's ample reason to believe that the BMW-Toyota tie up will result in a Supra successor based on comments made by the chief engineer of the GT86/FR-S program, Tatsuya Tada, back in August. Follow that with a rumor from earlier this month that Toyota could debut a Supra concept car at the upcoming Detroit Auto Show later this month, and we could be seeing the fruits of this partnership sooner rather than later.

Toyota gives up more information on Frankfurt-bound Yaris Hybrid-R concept

Toyota has undeniably carved out a niche for itself as the industry's leader in hybrid propulsion. What started out with the original Prius in 1997 has, over the past sixteen years, ballooned to what Toyota reports as a global hybrid portfolio of 23 models. But few (if any of them) are particularly exciting.
That's where the Yaris Hybrid-R concept comes in. Set to be showcased along with the rest of Toyota's hybrid and fuel-cell lineup at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show next month, the concept starts with one of the Japanese auto giant's least exciting models and upgrades it to more enticing territory. Toyota Motorsport GmbH - the same Cologne, Germany-based division that operated the company's F1 team, currently runs its Le Mans program and gave us that bonkers 650-horsepower Lexus LS - has slotted in a version of Toyota's new 1.6-liter Global Race Engine and paired it with a couple of electric motors for hybrid propulsion and through-the-road all-wheel drive.
Like the TS030 Hybrid LMP1, the Yaris Hybrid-R concept uses a super capacitor (instead of a conventional battery) to store the regenerated brake energy and give it upwards of 400 horsepower. That's about all Toyota is revealing at this point, but this is the first time it has confirmed the project is based on a Yaris, of all things, and the confirmation comes with the solitary teaser rendering you see above. Check out the press release after the jump and watch this space for more as Frankfurt fast approaches.

NHTSA releases updated Takata airbag recalled cars list, but it still has errors

Unfortunately, the government's list still contains errors.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued an updated list of vehicle models that it's urging owners to repair under the mushrooming Takata airbag inflator recall. The latest version adds vehicles from new automakers like Subaru and Ford that are missing from the original announcement, and it also removes erroneous entries from General Motors, leaving only the 2005 Saab 9-2X (a reskinned Subaru WRX), and the 2003-2005 Pontiac Vibe, a joint project with Toyota.