For the coming new year Toyota UK has prepared something special and it’s called the Toyota Aygo Platinum Edition. The Aygo Platinum is offered in both 3-door and 5-door powered with Toyota’s 1.0 liter VVT-i petrol engine that achieves 61.4 mpg in combined driving cycle. Its carbon emission is just 109 g/km of CO2 and charge only with £35 a year in Vehicle Excise Duty.

The Aygo Platinum is made better than the Aygo+ since it was added with Alcantara and leather upholstery, leather steering wheel and gear knob, 14-inch turbine alloy wheels that is painted with exclusive Crystal Silver.

The other Aygo+ features included are six airbags, electric front windows, tilt adjusting steering column, remote central locking, removable rear parcelsshelf, six-speaker sound system with CD player and AUX-in socket for connecting portable audio equipment, 50:50 split-folding rear seats plus body color-matched door handles. Likewise a five speed manual gearbox is offered as standard but optional MultiMode clutchless transmission may also be selected that is in conjunction with the optional air conditioning.

The prices for the three-door model and five-door are £7,995 and £8,245 respectively. The Toyota Aygo Platinum will go on sale starting January next year and will benefit from the £1,555 worth of additional equipment that goes beyond the range-topping Aygo+ with a price that is only a little over $550 resulting to a savings of more than £1,000. But if you are searching for quality Acura Integra oxygen sensor kindly just visit the link provided.

According to The Auto Channel, Chang-Ran Kim, a writer for Reuters, reported that the Toyota Motor Corp. will blast off further into rising car markets to attain another successful year of record sales for the coming year. Toyota aims to stay on top as the world's prime automaker in front of General Motors Corp.

The Japanese car manufacturer is the world's most gainful and valuable carmaker by now. It is projected that it will sell 9.85 million vehicles in 2008 - way beyond the estimated 9.36 million this year.

"The Chinese market has undergone a significant change during the year," President Katsuaki Watanabe told a year-end news conference.

"At the beginning of the year, we wondered if the total auto market would reach 8 million, and by mid-year we were looking at 8.5 million. Now it's possible the market will exceed 9 million," he said. "We need to figure out how to meet demand."

Despite the bad publicities hurdled at Toyota it didn’t stop new and loyal customers from visiting Toyota dealers to purchase Toyota vehicles. As a matter of fact the result of the survey conducted by J.D. Power & Associates shows that Toyota has once again led all automakers in terms of customer retention.

Toyota has posted 65% of Toyota’s buyers last year has traded a Toyota for a new one. Coming in second place is Toyota’s luxury division Lexus with 63% followed by Honda Motor, the producer of high quality Acura headers with 62.8%.

Neal Oddes, director of product research and analysis at J.D. Power said, "Toyota's high customer retention rate is particularly notable, considering that new-vehicle sales have declined in the past year. Toyota maintains its high retention rates by providing high-quality vehicles and service to its existing customers, which in turn generates favorable word-of-mouth recommendations that attract new customers."

Toyota’s customer retention is quite impressive considering that the overall average obtained by the industry is only 49% with the highest US nameplate Chevrolet obtaining 56% attributed to the high loyalty rate among buyers of Chevy pickups and large sport-utility vehicles such as the Suburban. Ford Motor has also obtained 53% of which a great deal was attributed to the pickup business.

The brands that score poorly on the survey include Mini, Isuzu Motors, Pontiac, Jaguar and Land Rover.

BMW has topped European brands in terms of customer loyalty at 58% while Mercedes-Benz comes in second place with 57% followed by prosche with 42%, Audi with 41%, Saab at 34%, and Volvo and Volkswagen both with 33%. The weakness of the US dollar against the Euro has made it harder for European brands to retain customers.

Toyota not to be outdone by Honda--the producer of quality Acura distributor cap and creator of the ASIMO robot—in the field of robotics has also released a human-sized robot that can play the violin.

The Toyota robot has performed a full rendition of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance. A video of the robot may be viewed on YouTube.

According to Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe in an interview with The Guardian, "Over the next two to three years, we will put the robots to the test through trial applications and see what kind of business possibilities they present."

Mr. Watanabe also said that by 2020 robotics will become an important part of the company as a matter of fact next year Toyota will reveal medical robots, and also plans of producing what they call as “partner robots” that are designed for domestic duties, nursing, healthcare and short-distance personal transport by 2010.

Toyota has also introduced Robina, which is a wheeled robot with a human torso it was made to perform as working guide at Toyota’s showroom in Tokyo for the past year, and is programmed to answer questions and sign autographs.

Another robot by the name of Mobina was introduced which is a two-wheeled 4mph motorized wheelchair that can navigate a variety of surfaces for 13 miles between charges. Toyota also plans of producing another version but this time one that can act as a porter.

Toyota is venturing in the filed of robotics since there is a high demand for robots in Japan especially in domestic and medical fields.