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The opening round of the GR Vios Challenge, part of the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Festival, got off to a great start for Season 6 at the Sepang International Circuit over the weekend. Besides being able to watch the races live at the track, spectators from all over the online world also got to follow the excitement with live streaming on the two days.

In total, more than 3.5 million viewers watched the races which also featured a line-up of five new celebrities, 6 new rookie drivers and a grid of 45 cars.

After 5 seasons, the GR Vios Challenge now sees a diverse mix of newcomers and veteran racers, youngsters from a new generation that grew up with simulators and karting and the older drivers who have the experience of numerous races over many years. It was apparent during the weekend that the new generation has an impressive pace, in spite of less years of racing.

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The GR Vios Challenge has been a very successful series which has contributed to the development of the Malaysian motorsports industry. Over the past 5 years, UMW Toyota Motor and TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Malaysia pumped in a lot of money and incentives to make it a leading motorsports event. Incorporated in the TGR Racing Festival for most years (except when the pandemic prevented public gatherings), the series attracted more than 15 million spectators and viewers (both on-site and online via live streaming).

This year, the GR Vios Challenge will enter its sixth season and as in 2022, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Malaysia will also run the GR Vios Sprint Cup, GR Vios Enduro Cup and participate in the Sepang 100KM endurance race.

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Toyota has various solutions to offer that can contribute towards the quest for carbon neutrality. It does not believe that pure electric vehicles (EVs) are the only way to go as different markets and regions require different approaches. It has hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) technology at one end of the range of mobility solutions and at the other more advanced end, it can also provide fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) that use hydrogen.

For Malaysia at the moment, HEV technology is deemed the most practical solution and the company has started assembling HEV models locally to accelerate adoption. HEVs like the Corolla Cross Hybrid do not depend on charging stations to recharge their battery packs and the process occurs while the SUV is moving. Thus Malaysians can do their balik kampung journeys with peace of mind and don’t have to think about finding a recharging station.

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Toyota, like some of the other top carmakers, has expressed a view that the goal of carbon neutrality to prevent climate change is not a single-solution – going electric with motor vehicles – approach. While they do recognise the importance of moving towards that goal, they feel that the electric-only solution is not practical and is also costly. A choice of solutions that include some existing technologies (improved, of course) is being promoted as a more realistic approach.

Toyota’s President, Akio Toyoda, is very vocal about this and was among the first car company CEOs to state the position. Perhaps that encouraged the CEOs in the other companies to also echo similar views but still committing to increasing production of zero emissions battery electric vehicles (BEVs). They are probably under a lot of pressure to allocate massive funding for BEV R&D and at the same time, they still need to continue some development of combustion engine powertrains.

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With the popularity of the Ford Ranger Raptor showing that there are people who want a truck that’s not only built tough but also includes high performance in its list of capabilities, the folks at Toyota Australia decided they too would also come out with a high-performance version of the Hilux. Although Toyota doesn’t make vehicles in Australia any longer, it has an engineering facility which does a lot of development work on Toyota’s 4×4 models so it was the best place for such a project.

The high-performance Hilux is designated the GR Sport, associating it with Toyota’s GR range of performance models. The hardcore off-roader is the most powerful diesel Hilux ever offered by Toyota with power and torque from the 2.8-litre engine boosted by 10% to 165 kW/224 ps and 550 Nm. The boost in output has been achieved through revised turbo-supercharging and fuel-injection control.

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For all the difficulties in getting parts, especially microprocessors, that the auto industry faced in 2022, it was certainly a great year with the Total Industry Volume (TIV) expected to be over 700,000 units when the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) announces the full year sales results soon.

While the two Malaysian carmakers continued to dominate the market, the bestselling non-Malaysian brand was Toyota, with 100,042 vehicles delivered during the year. While some may be confused as we reported on Honda being the No.1 brand, the difference is that Honda was No.1 in passenger vehicle sales alone – excluding pick-up trucks and commercial vehicles which it does not sell.

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Although the ORC ROOKIE Racing Team did not for run the entire time at the recent Idemitsu 1500 Super Endurance 2022 (Thailand 25-Hour Endurance Race), its cars drew much attention during the first and last few hours that they were running. Their participation was not to compete in the race but to showcase the feasibility of carbon neutrality using existing technology and resources to offer multiple pathways to accelerate carbon neutrality in a prompt and practical manner.

Besides the two entries of the ORC ROOKIE Racing Team (founded and owned by Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor Corporation), there was also a Carbon-neutral fuel car entered by TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Team Thailand which won the finish Carbon Neutral Power Cup and completed completing 443 laps.

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Like other types of motor vehicles, trucks too are electrifying. Some companies like Ford and GM have already begun selling fully electric trucks and eventually, the bestselling truck outside North America will also go electric. This is the Toyota Hilux, a popular model in many countries for decades, which has built up a strong reputation for durability and reliability.

Toyota already has a development program ongoing for an electric Hilux as evident by a prototype shown in Thailand recently. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Toyota Thailand, Toyota President Akio Toyoda personally presented the Hilux Revo BEV to give a preview of a future Hilux with electric power.

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With three weeks remaining until the start of the 2023 Dakar Rally, the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing (TGR) is making preparations for its 3-vehicle team’s entry in the first round of the World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) 2023 season. The team will have reigning masters, Nasser Al-Attiyah and co-driver Mathieu Baumel, with newly crowned South African Rally-Raid Champion Giniel de Villiers and co-driver Dennis Murphy, as well as Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings.

The 2023 W2RC starts with the Dakar Rally in January, and will be followed by the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge at the end of February; the Sonora Rally in Mexico during April, and the Desafio Ruta 40 in Argentina at the end of August. The season will draw to a close with the Rally of Morocco, again scheduled for mid-October. Al-Attiyah and Baumel will compete in all the rounds.

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When Toyota revealed the bZ Compact SUV Concept last month, it was suspected that the design of the battery electric model might also be used for the next generation of the C-HR compact SUV. The first generation of the C-HR has been in production since late 2016 so it should be due for change.

Now Toyota has also revealed the C-HR prologue and mentions that it is a preview of the next generation of the compact SUV. It’s likely that the new model will be launched in 2023 though there’s no indication whether it will be during the early part or as late as the Japan Mobility Show (the new name for the Tokyo Motor Show) at the end of October.

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