TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) sees an opportunity to increase sales through vehicle leasing as U.S. automakers pull back, Toyota U.S. sales chief said on Wednesday.

Bob Carter, group vice president of Toyota Motor U.S.A. Sales, said the automaker is committed to leasing in the U.S. market because record high residual values for its fuel-efficient cars and hybrids are offsetting falling values of large trucks and SUVs.

Toyota Motor Corp. still has the best working relationship with automotive suppliers, but it’s now closely followed by Honda Motor Co., according to an annual survey released Monday.

The ratings of Toyota and Nissan Motor Corp. both dropped significantly, while Chrysler LLC posted its second year of declines to fall to last place in the rankings slightly behind General Motors Corp., according to the survey by Planning Perspectives Inc. of Birmingham, Mich.

Drive a SUV through certain segments of society and you’re likely to be derided as a fiend personally responsible for blackening the sky, raising gas prices and aiming for people in crosswalks. Why, then, don’t Forester drivers, who technically are hauling around town in SUVs, face the same psychic daggers from the Green populace?

Massive declines in pickup sales, combined with stronger sales of cars, means that the Toyota Camry will likely pass the Ford F-Series as the best-selling vehicle line in America this year, according to Kimberly Rodriguez, principal of Grant Thornton Advisory Services Automotive Platform. She also expects Honda Motor Co. to surpass Chrysler LLC as the No. 3 automaker in the United States.

F-Series sales were down 22% through July, with 319,542 units sold. The Toyota Camry, meanwhile, posted flat sales through July, with 282,012 units sold.

This is a car that sips gas, so everyone wants one.
“You can’t find one” on a dealer’s lot now, one Prius owner told me at the gas pumps. He beamed like a proud father when we asked about his car and quickly informed us how much it cost him to fill up. Fortunately, we were not testing a big SUV that day.

Beginning with the Sprint Cup race Aug. 17 at Michigan International Speedway, Brad Coleman will replace J.J. Yeley as the driver of the No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing Toyota, team officials announced Wednesday.

Yeley, 36th in the Sprint Cup standings, has been released from the team. Coleman, 20, who will attempt to make his Cup debut at Michigan, has served the organization as a test driver since November 2007.

Toyota said Thursday that its worldwide net income for the quarter fell 28 percent, its biggest slide in profit in about five years. Most of the shortfall, the company said, was the result of slumping sales of its Tundra pickup truck and S.U.V.’s made and sold in North America.

Toyota said its net income fell to 353.7 billion yen, or about $3.2 billion, in the quarter, compared with 491.5 billion yen in the period a year earlier.

Revenue in the three-month period, which ended June 30, fell 4.7 percent, to 6.22 trillion yen.

Aug 06, 2008 (Datamonitor via COMTEX) — TYSAF | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating — Toyota Motor has reached an agreement with its joint venture partner in South Africa, Wesco Investments, under which its local affiliate, Toyota South Africa, will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota Motor.

Under the agreement, Toyota Motor will acquire Wesco’s 25% share in Toyota South Africa (TSA) in late August 2008.

TOKYO, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corp (8015.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is conducting a feasibility study with Brazil’s state-run energy company Petrobras into the possibility of building an ethanol plant there, a company spokesman said on Wednesday.

“At this point all we can say is that we are conducting a feasibility study into the possibility of producing ethanol from sugar canes, together with Petrobras,” he said.

The first 500 sand dunes of the Simpson Desert are punishing enough.

Then there’s the realisation there are yet more remaining, ranging in height from a few metres to more than 40. It sounds worse than it is; the Simpson Desert is not difficult in terms of off-roading.

Any capable four-wheel-drive can traverse the seemingly never-ending collection of the world’s longest collection of parallel sand dunes.

But there is no short-cut over the Simpson. The steady 20km/h grind is by far the slowest, most laborious part of our 7000-kilometre trek across Australia, a journey to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the enduring Toyota LandCruiser.