Car FYI

Photo Credit: Toyota Canada Inc. The Canadian International AutoShow always features a lively and eclectic group of automobiles. This year’s show pledges to offer the greatest of 2016 cars, trucks, vans, crossovers, and almost any other class of passenger vehicle on four wheels. Some of the most engaging concept vehicles also arrive in Toronto every year as a firsthand opportunity for Canadians of the great city to chart what progress is upcoming for automobiles. Many times attendees of the Canadian show are the first in the country to witness the bold and high-tech future but we face the reality that we are not the first public members to examine such designs. Sometimes automakers even send concept vehicles that were first displayed several years ago to Toronto. Having brought the i-Road, FV2 Concept and the Fun-VII to previous iterations of the Canadian International AutoShow, Toyota will embark on a fairly uncommon vehicle. As much as their concept design is striking amongst...

  For decades, Honda has been able to depend upon their compact Civic as the bread and butter model for the brand. A reliable, trustworthy vehicle delivering much of what the overall driver is looking for in a car, the Honda Civic has been popular. In Canada, the Civic has spent the past 17 years as the best-selling car. Canada is also the proud home of a production facility for the economy car with the Alliston, Ontario manufacturing plant. A car that long enjoyed the spotlight as the example of efficient small cars, the current Civic in 2015 has arguably lost perspective of the automotive marketplace in the second decade of the 21 st century. The ninth-generation Honda Civic launched for the 2012 model year for the North American market was received poorly. In the following year, an unusual early revision of the Honda Civic took care of some problems but issues with the bland styling and dated engine technology plagued the car in recent years. The emerge of the mundan...

Realizing an automotive landscape today where almost every automaker promoting vehicles with some kind of electrified powertrain, it is hard to recall how 20 years ago electric or hybrid cars were seen as an oddity. Back then, Toyota raised eyebrows with the production of a small car that combined gasoline and electric power to move. Advertised as a more environmentally-friendly way of travel, the idea also presented some practicality. The first Toyota Prius was bold technology for the 1990s based on an idea that actually dated back around the turn of the 20th century. To many, a gasoline engine and electric motor working together was a wacky premise resulting in the Prius being received like the stereotypical nerdy kid. Bravery of the Toyota Prius allowed it to survive critics who dismissed the advantages of the hybrid vehicle as a green fad or bean-counters who believed hybrids can never be produced profitably. No longer the era where the majority of Internet came through a di...