Magnussen's Toyota of Palo Alto

Not only do Palo Alto area drivers love the Toyota Corolla, but Americans have helped make it one of the best-selling cars of all time. Because of that, Toyota has made a point to move more manufacturing plants to the United States. The latest of these, in Blue Springs, Mississippi, just celebrated their very first production - a shiny black Corolla - alongside Toyota Motor Corp. President, Akio Toyoda.

The new plant was a $1.3-billion investment...

Already one of the top automakers in green car engineering, Toyota is taking their efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions a few steps further. As well as working to reduce the effects of the "urban-heat island phenomenon"¹, the Japanese automaker has recently turned their focus to bio-fuels. Toyota has begun pioneering research into something called cellulosic ethanol - a yeast produced from non-edible plants.

The recently developed yeast ferments xylose, the sugar produced by plant…