Japan, Japanese Automaker | featured news

Toyota has surged back from a downturn following the natural disasters in Japan last year and is expecting to sell 23 percent more vehicles than it did in 2011.

Toyota over the weekend broke ground for a technical center near Shanghai that will prepare for shifting production to China of tightly guarded technology used in its hybrids and other alternative-energy vehicles—but not its latest technology.

Toyota Motor Co may slip to No. 3 in the automaker production rankings behind General Motors and Volkswagen due to Japan's earthquake and nuclear crisis, which slashed local output by almost two-thirds in March alone.

Toyota and Nissan they will resume production at all factories in Japan in mid-to-late April at about half their normal pace, joining Honda in an industrywide move to restart production halted by the March 11 earthquake.

Toyota is recalling 1.53 million Lexus, Avalon and other models, mostly in the U.S. and Japan, for brake fluid and fuel pump problems, the latest in a string of quality problems for the world's No. 1 automaker.

Toyota started recalling more than 90,000 luxury Lexus and Crown vehicles Monday in Japan over defective engines - the latest setback for the automaker beset with quality problems.

The travails of Japanese car makers continue today with the Nissan Motor Company announcing it is to recall nearly 540,000 vehicles globally, with the majority of the recalls affecting the US.