Cars! Cars! Cars!

Open Mic

Bloomberg News reports: Toyota's Watanabe Comments on Interest Rates, G.M., U.S. Market. At a mid-year press conference, Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe offered his thoughts on several topics, including General Motors:

"The Nummi factory is a very important venture for Toyota. Operating the factory with GM really helps us learn a lot."

"We haven't even thought whether we will participate in a GM-Renault-Nissan alliance or not. We are not considering how we can participate."

Not knowing his microphone could still be picked up by the Cars! Cars! Cars! audio techmologists, Mr. Watanabe was also (not really) heard saying, as he buttered a lap dancer:

Yo, Fukui! See the irony is that what they [GM] need to do is get their heads out of their arses and stop building this shit.

All this despite Mr. Watanabe's doctors saying to lay off the butter.

Honda To Open Can Of Whoop-Ass

Uh oh. Now we've all done it. Well, Toyota, anyway. Honda's opening up their special can of engineering whoop-ass, and it's gonna foam all over Toyota. Honda Bets Scientists in Secret Engine Lab Can Outsmart Toyota. How in the world is Honda making a better product? Cutting workers? Cutting design?

Honda increased its annual research budget for the year ending on March 31, 2007, to a record 545 billion yen ($4.72 billion), 6.8 percent more than a year earlier and a 17 percent leap from 467.7 billion yen in the year ended in March 2005.

Oh. Well, good luck to Honda. This is how it's supposed to work (competition and all the that flippy capitalism stuff).