Heyward Allen Toyota

According to 7Tune, Toyota recently held at shindig in Japan for select scribes in order to get some things straight about its Toyota G's performance vehicles. Naturally, talk quickly turned to the FT-86 (or FR-S) Although it was reported two months ago that the much-anticipated sports coupe would be delayed until 2013 for design and powerplant reasons, the Toyota engineers at the event reportedly attested that "the car is on schedule" and still has a planned release date of November 2011.

Clarity on the lineup was offered as well: Three spec levels will be available with at least two engines, and the mid-range model is expected to run around 2.5 million yen ($28,500 USD). Further, it appears that a turbocharged variant will take the top slot. According to 7Tune, none of those engines will be a hybrid - that tech is being reserved for a different sporty product.

If there's any news from the event that makes us as excited as word that we might see the car next year, it's the head of the sports division saying that "because of Toyota's connection with Subaru, there was no way that the car wasn't going to be great." We hope he knows what he's talking about.

Motor Trend is reporting that Toyota is hard at work on a fully electric supercar. Toyota President Akio Toyoda was so impressed after a spin in Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster that he immediately green-lit a feasibility study into the electric supercar project. Rumors of electric Toyota SUV mules powered by Tesla battery packs have abounded ever since the announcement was made.

Toyota's supposed electric supercar would theoretically go up against the likes of the Mercedes-Benz E-Cell, Audi e-tron and whatever BMW's Efficient Dynamics movement has cooking up. We should also point out that Toyota has indeed shown off a number of hybrid sportscar and electric vehicle concepts over the last few years, so such a project wouldn't be completely out of the blue.

During a interview with a group of American media this afternoon in Nagoya, Japan, Toyota  president Akio Toyoda revealed that his company is already in the process of building a prototype electric vehicle with a Tesla battery pack. The statement came in response to questions about the relationship between Toyota and Tesla. As time ran out, we did not have an opportunity for further follow-up or clarification.

However, both Toyoda and executive vice president Shinichi Sasaki both indicated that Toyota was interested in comparing Tesla's battery configuration against their own internally developed battery. Toyota has a joint-venture with Panasonic that is building larger format automotive batteries that are similar to those used by most other manufacturers. By comparison, Tesla uses commodity 18650-format cells that are typically found in laptop computers. The Roadster's pack contains 6,831 such cells.

The long-term durability of the Tesla approach is still very much in question as few Roadsters have accumulated high mileage especially in harsh conditions that more mainstream cars would experience. We may or may not ever see a Toyota car with a Tesla battery pack publicly, as it all depends on the results of this study.

Car & Driver magazine recently completed a short-take of the new 2011 Toyota Sienna, calling it the best minivan on the market! We're not allowed to republish it here so click the link to read what they had to say for yourself:

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/car/10q2/2011_toyota_sienna_xle_awd-short_take_road_test

Following the example of the Nissan Titan/Frontier updating scheme, Toyota is preparing its 2011 Tacoma pickup. We've detailed the main change happening under the skin - a bevy of automatic transmissions replacing discontinued manuals. As for the outside, PickupTrucks.com has posted the above photo of a pre-production Taco. Can you spot the difference?

That's right! The two-bar grille is now a one-bar grille! You know what they say about messing with perfection. The midsize truck will appear later this year starting at $16,365, ringing the bell for $27,525 at the high end.