New Toyota Supra could ditch turbos and stick shift for batteries and carbon fiber

By Stephen Edelstein Published August 20, 2013

It’s hard to believe now, but Toyota once had a fleet of sporty cars.

Standing head and shoulders above all of the Celicas, MR2s, and Corolla AE86s was the Supra. Over a career spanning 24 years and four generations, the Supra proved that Toyota had a soul.

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The Supra went out of production in 2002, and Toyota has definitely lost its soul since then. Good news, though: Yahoo! Autos reports that a new Supra is on the way!

Toyota President and CEO Akio Toyoda is reportedly pushing the project as part of his ongoing effort to get more exciting cars into the hands of customers. Toyota’s new chairman, Takeshi Uchiyamada, has also expressed interest in a flagship sports car for the brand, one that could slot above the GT86 (aka Scion FR-S) in the lineup.

However, this new Supra could be a different kind of exciting.

Old Supras, specifically the 1992-2002 Mark IV (as seen in The Fast & The Furious), were known for their powerful turbocharged engines and rear-wheel drive chassis. Yet the next Supra could be a hybrid; not surprising given that Toyota’s most recognizable 21st century product is still the Prius.

Specifics on the hybrid powertrain are nonexistent, but output is tentatively being pegged at around 500 horsepower. That puts the Supra in the same near-supercar class as the Nissan GT-R, Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, and SRT Viper.

It also eclipses the BMW i8’s projected total system output of 362 hp. Toyota recently established a partnership with Munich to, among other things, develop a new sports car. How (and if) the Supra project relates to the plug-in hybrid i8 remains to be seen.

On the road, the Supra will probably feel more like a GT-R than anything from the States. Like the Nissan, it will probably emphasize technology over simplicity. A manual transmission is unlikely, but a carbon fiber body could be part of the plan.

One more thing: It may not be called “Supra.” While the name carries a lot of weight with people who grew up during the ‘90s, Toyota says it is one “candidate” on a long list. With so many potential changes already in store, a new name might be appropriate anyway.

What do you think of Toyota’s plans for a new Supra – or whatever it will be called? Tell us in the comments and take your shot at naming the car.

Topics

Toyota

Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

Cars

Tesla, Warner Bros. dodge some claims in ‘Blade Runner 2049’ lawsuit, copyright battle continues

Tesla Cybercab at night

Tesla and Warner Bros. scored a partial legal victory as a federal judge dismissed several claims in a lawsuit filed by Alcon Entertainment, a production company behind the 2017 sci-fi movie Blade Runner 2049, Reuters reports.
The lawsuit accused the two companies of using imagery from the film to promote Tesla’s autonomous Cybercab vehicle at an event hosted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Studios in Hollywood in October of last year.
U.S. District Judge George Wu indicated he was inclined to dismiss Alcon’s allegations that Tesla and Warner Bros. violated trademark law, according to Reuters. Specifically, the judge said Musk only referenced the original Blade Runner movie at the event, and noted that Tesla and Alcon are not competitors.
"Tesla and Musk are looking to sell cars," Reuters quoted Wu as saying. "Plaintiff is plainly not in that line of business."
Wu also dismissed most of Alcon's claims against Warner Bros., the distributor of the Blade Runner franchise.
However, the judge allowed Alcon to continue its copyright infringement claims against Tesla for its alleged use of AI-generated images mimicking scenes from Blade Runner 2049 without permission.
Alcan says that just hours before the Cybercab event, it had turned down a request from Tesla and WBD to use “an icononic still image” from the movie.
In the lawsuit, Alcon explained its decision by saying that “any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account.”
Alcon further said it did not want Blade Runner 2049 “to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company, for all of these reasons.”
But according to Alcon, Tesla went ahead with feeding images from Blade Runner 2049 into an AI image generator to yield a still image that appeared on screen for 10 seconds during the Cybercab event. With the image featured in the background, Musk directly referenced Blade Runner.
Alcon also said that Musk’s reference to Blade Runner 2049 was not a coincidence as the movie features a “strikingly designed, artificially intelligent, fully autonomous car.”

Cars

Audi halts vehicle deliveries to the U.S. as it mulls impact of tariffs

2021 Audi Q5

If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time. The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles.
Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand.
Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE.
And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55.

Cars

Waymo faces questions about its use of onboard cameras for AI training, ads targeting

Two people exit a Waymo taxi.

In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes.
It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis.
On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads.
“Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”
Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”.
Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner.