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Toyota has been reported to be working with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to develop a new vehicle for use on the moon. As reported by Sky News, the lunar rover will be used on their manned mission to the moon in 2030. Not much is known about the vehicle and how Toyota is involved in it, but if the information is true, Toyota could become the second automaker to put a vehicle on the moon. The first lunar vehicle was produced with the help of General Motors and it landed on the moon in 1971. Back it the day, it had four electric motors that produced 0.25bhp each and were powered by two 36 volt silver-zinc potassium hydroxide batteries. It allowed the crew of Apollo 17 to drive it for a total of 35.9 km with a total runtime of 4 hours and 26 minutes. More details about the moon vehicle is expected to emerge in a couple of weeks' time.

Ever since the whole Toyota recall debacle exploded late in 2009, one of the company's biggest problems has been the way it has responded to the problems. Many have criticized Toyota for either ignoring the problems or pretending that there is nothing wrong, but the company is now seeking to address that appearance by setting up rapid response teams to deal with reported incidents of unintended acceleration. For example, when a pair of alleged "unintended acceleration" incidents happened in San Diego and Connecticut, Toyota jumped in, sending out investigators to join government officials in trying to find out what happened.The new Swift Market Analysis Response Team (SMART) will now be immediately dispatched to the site of any reported unintended acceleration incident. The teams will consist of product engineers, field technical specialists and specially trained dealer technicians. Whenever dealers or Toyota are notified of an incident, the SMART team will head out to the site to evaluate the vehicle and gather evidence. Engineers from Toyota's Japanese product development teams will also assist in the analysis. Hopefully, a more thorough investigation of every reported case will provide Toyota with a larger pool of data from which it can gain a better understanding of what may or may not be happening. Even if there is not actually a problem, Toyota needs to prove so conclusively, because if these kinds of incidents continue happening, they will only damage the company's reputation further.

Irvine, CA - There are comprehensive safety systems in modern cars designed to help protect just about every occupant - except the unborn child. Researchers still know surprisingly little about what happens to a fetus in a car crash. To expand engineers' and designers' understanding in this area, Volvo Car Corporation has developed the world's first official computer model of a pregnant crash dummy. This 'virtual' crash dummy is a woman at a late stage of her pregnancy, since that is when the unborn baby is at greatest risk in an accident. The basic geometry was completed in January, 2002 and much time has been devoted since then to refining the model. "Now it's finished and we've started running simulated front-end impact tests on it," says Camilla Palmertz, a biomechanical engineer at the Volvo Cars Safety Centre in G