Toyota Technical Center

An executive for Toyota Technical Center has filed suit against the Torrance-based company, charging that he and other employees were bypassed for promotions because they were not Japanese nationals. The employment discrimination and civil rights suit filed by John Horton in Torrance Superior Court seeks more than $240 million in damages.

When James Muse learned that Prince Charles planned to visit his class at the Toyota Automotive Training Center, the first thought that popped into his mind was, "Why?" "I didn't understand why he'd come here, to the inner city," said Muse, a genial man dressed in the customary blue work clothes of center trainees. "Of all the places he could visit in Los Angeles, why would he come here? . . . But thinking about it, I guess I'm pretty proud we were chosen."

When James Muse learned that Prince Charles planned to visit his class at the Toyota Automotive Training Center, the first thought that popped into his mind was, "Why?" "I didn't understand why he'd come here, to the inner city," said Muse, a genial man dressed in the customary blue work clothes of center trainees. "Of all the places he could visit in Los Angeles, why would he come here? . . . But thinking about it, I guess I'm pretty proud we were chosen."

An executive for Toyota Technical Center has filed suit against the Torrance-based company, charging that he and other employees were bypassed for promotions because they were not Japanese nationals. The employment discrimination and civil rights suit filed by John Horton in Torrance Superior Court seeks more than $240 million in damages.

Toyota Motor Corp. and a U.S. unit were added to a lawsuit by U.S. regulators accusing the auto maker of violating clean-air rules in a case that carries potentially billions of dollars in fines. The Justice Department this week filed suit against Japan's largest auto maker and its Torrance-based subsidiary, Toyota Technical Center USA Inc. The suit alleges that computerized emission control systems in 2.

Toyota documents compiled in connection with a court case show the automaker's travails with the 2002-2006 model years of the Lexus ES 300, 330 and 350 sedans. Oct. 1999: Four engineers identify "shift shock" and "weak feeling" in the transmission of the early prototype. Aug. 2000: Eight engineers rate the ES prototype unacceptable in 20 of 41 performance categories. Feb. 2001: A driveability test notes that "some customers may equate delayed [gear] engagement with engine acceleration hesitation."

'I think we really have to take the blinders off and recognize what's happening.' --John Horton, Toyota manager The biggest compliment John Horton recalls getting during his decade at Toyota Technical Center in Gardena was a whispered comment about his work from a Japanese supervisor. "John san, you're almost Japanese," Horton recalls his boss saying.

Toyota Motor Corp. showed off its newest fuel-cell-powered vehicle Wednesday but said that although the Highlander-sport-utility-based FCHV-4 represents a nearly seamless integration of fuel cell technology into a standard production vehicle, mass production and retail sales are at least a decade away. The five-passenger fuel cell hybrid vehicle is unusual in that it uses a small storage battery to capture the electricity produced in the hydrogen-fed fuel cell and feed it to the motor on demand.

Toyota Motor Corp. has a message for its American operations: It's all yours. With top management concentrating on expanding in Asia and Europe as part of Toyota's drive to grab 15% of the global automotive market by 2010, much of the decision-making at the company's thriving U.S. division is being put in the hands of U.S.-based, non-Japanese executives.

Toyota Motor Corp., significantly expanding its presence in Southern California, on Thursday opened a sprawling new $46-million research and development center near its automobile sales headquarters in Torrance. The technical center, which will share the spotlight today with a greatly expanded Toyota car design facility that is opening in Newport Beach, is part of a $220-million investment to strengthen Toyota's U.S. research and development capability.

He was an engineering wizard for Toyota with an environmentalist's heart -- an executive who championed hybrid gasoline-electric cars years before global warming entered the popular conversation. He translated the virtues of the fuel-efficient Prius in appearances before lawmakers and scientists, promoting a car of the future that would win the embrace of a once-skeptical American public.

Those who've been wishing for more choices in hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles have been buzzing about word from Japan that Toyota Motor Corp. intends to have hybrid versions of all of its vehicle types available by 2012. Wrong. Dave Hermance, chief engineer in the environmental engineering section of Toyota Technical Center USA in Torrance, says what the company wants is to have a standardized hybrid system ready by 2012 to use in whichever segments it decides to offer a hybrid car or truck.