LEXUS 2006 HYBRID: Lexus is to offer a hybrid version of its new LS range when it's launched in Detroit at the start of next year.
Called the LS600h, it will not feature in ithe initial line-up but will be the flagship version of the range when it arrives, probably by 2007.
As with the RX hybrid and GS hybrid - the latter going on sale next year - the numbers reflect the equivalent output rather than the engine. So, while likely powered by a 4.6-litre V8 engine and electric motors, Lexus believes it will have the performance of a 6-litre engine.
Meanwhile a concept version of the new LS is on display at the Tokyo motor show today.
JAPANESE IN GM DEAL: The head of Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday he would not rule out buying a stake in a non-Japanese car firm, but added it was not clear how much need there was for such a move.
"I wouldn't say the possibility was zero," Mr Katsuaki Watanabe, president of Toyota, said at an industry conference when asked whether the car giant would consider a stake in a competitor outside Japan. "It's a question of whether there would be a need for that," Watanabe said.
In a surprise move, Japan's top car company this month announced it would buy part of General Motors' 20 per cent stake in Subaru-maker Fuji Heavy Industries to seek co-operation in the areas of production and R&D.
PORSCHE'S POSITION: Porsche is prepared to guarantee the position of Ferdinand Piëch, one of its largest shareholders, as supervisory board chairman of Volkswagen amid an increasingly bitter corporate governance battle at Europe's largest car-maker.
Eighty per cent of investors present at an annual or extraordinary shareholders' meeting at VW would be needed to vote out Mr Piëch, according to the car-maker's articles of association.
Porsche, the largest shareholder with 18.5 per cent, would be able to block any resolution because the turnout is never 100 per cent.