Toyota FJ Land Cruiser
Toyota announced its new Toyota FJ Land Cruiser model. The Toyota FJ Land Cruiser is a smaller five-seater vehicle. It is a direct replacement for the FJ Cruiser which was sold in many markets outside the UK and European Union. Like its predecessor the Toyota FJ Land Cruiser shares underpinnings with its larger 7-seater cousin the 250 series. It features a shorter wheelbase. Toyota has put a lot of effort into thinking about how it can make the Toyota FJ Land Cruiser more extensible in capabilities and more modular.
Modularity comes in compatibility with MOLLE military storage connectivity that has made its way into the civilian world. While Alpine packs are about sleek design with few snags, MOLLE allows fastenings, pouches and equipment to be suspended inside and outside bags. Toyota has now extended this to the inside of the Toyota FJ Land Cruiser’s rear door.
The focus on extensible features within the vehicle shows how some markets (notably America) have a large after market industry providing additional features for vehicles with aspirations to do overloading. Toyota is an active participant in the SEMA show in the US. This is where fans and the vehicle modifying industry get together to be inspired, do deals and gain intelligence on vehicles so that they can design new after market parts. Toyota brings concept builds, as well as allowing after market manufacturers to measure and 3D scan new vehicles.
The move to extensible design, shows that Toyota is interested in providing more of that capability through its own business. Third-party parts, in particular lift kits can affect handling and wheel bearings. Designing its own aftermarket parts and applying extensible thinking in the vehicle design philosophy allows Toyota to:
- Meet consumer needs.
- Ensure the vehicles meet the factory’s quality and reliability standards.
- Offer incremental additional revenue.
While a Toyota FJ Land Cruiser as ‘mum truck’ won’t need a water fording kit. An overlanding enthusiast like Chloe Kuo would put it to good use and influence more potential buyers in the process.
Like the FJ Cruiser before it we are unlikely to see the Toyota FJ Land Cruiser in UK Toyota dealerships due to the UK government’s focus on forcing UK consumers away from internal combustion vehicles. Instead they are likely to come in small numbers as JDM (Japanese domestic market) pre-owned vehicles.
Toyota recognises that net zero is more complex than importing Chinese electric vehicles. Considerations also need to be given to vehicle use case, the whole life carbon footprint of the car and sustainability. But that doesn’t make simple solutions for policy makers.
Toyota will have four Land Cruiser models that it will be selling around the world:
- J70 series – sold to the UN, various militaries, Japan, Australia and in the global south. Doesn’t pass current European vehicle laws as it’s designed for resilience, robustness, repairability and sustainment in the most hostile environments.
- J300 series – the flagship of the line-up. Sold in the US as the Lexus LX, this combines the comfort of a top of the range Range Rover with the capability of the 70 series in an off-road environment. As a Land Cruiser it is available in Australia, Japan, the Gulf States, South Africa and various countries in South East Asia from Sri Lanka to the Philippines.
- J250 series – the most widespread of the Land Cruiser range in terms of sales footprint. It is sold in Japan, Europe, North and South America, Australia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Brunei and the Gulf States. In Europe it’s known as the Land Cruiser. It’s sold in other markets as the Toyota Prado, the Toyota Land Cruiser 250 in Japan, the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado in Australia and in North America as the Lexus GX and Toyota Land Cruiser. It is smaller and utilitarian than the J300, but not quite as robust or spartan as the J70 series.
- FJ Land Cruiser – the Toyota FJ Land Cruiser is likely to be sold in North America and Japan, mirroring the markets where the FJ Cruiser was originally sold.
China
A Proud Superpower Answers to No One – by Ryan Fedasiuk – an odd blend of policy isolation and hubris. Read with China Doubles Down – by Stephen Roach – Conflict
Economics
How the UK Lost Its Shipbuilding Industry – by Brian Potter – The UK ultimately proved unable to respond to competitors who entered the market with new, large shipyards which employed novel methods of shipbuilding developed by the US during WWII. British industry in general failed to invest adequately to keep ahead of competitors. The UK fell from producing 57% of world tonnage in 1947 to just 17% a decade later. By the 1970s their output was below 5% of world total, and by the 1990s it was less than 1%. In 2023, the UK produced no commercial ships at all. – Part of this was also down to policy decisions. The Thatcher administration deliberately designated yards as military-only to drive them to the wall and smash the trade unions.
Energy
Honeywell unveils new technology to decarbonise heavy industries | FT – no reason why it couldn’t work for aviation and vehicle fuel as well in principle aside from scale.
US government and Westinghouse strike $80bn nuclear reactor deal | FT
Porsche hits reverse on EV push as new CEO shifts back to petrol | FT
Finance
Barclays buys Best Egg in $800mn bet on US loan securitisation | FT – is this sub-prime? Read also HSBC warns on wider risks from private credit blow-ups | FT
Hong Kong
Memory Exiled | History Workshop – a bit tiresome, don’t get me wrong I am happy to throw brickbats at the UK Government as a citizen of a decolonised country but this is distorted. – The UK government releases papers after 20 years, but some are kept under wraps for longer for national security or other reasons. Sensitive materials (in Hong Kong’s case, perhaps to do with the handover) don’t account for more than a tiny percentage of the content and are redacted. One possible reason the Hong Kong files are still not released is simply that there are huge amounts of them, and they are mostly on microfiche, which is a pain to digitise – not because of a desire to ‘control history’.
Breaking | Beijing vows to support Hong Kong in better integrating into national development | South China Morning Post – reads like extending Bay Area narrative and weakening Hong Kong‘s distinctiveness?
Innovation
The Loop: How American Profits Built Chinese Power
Luxury
Kim Jones joins Bosideng to lead its new high-end urban line | Vogue Business – Bosideng are a huge maker of down jackets, it will be interesting where they go with Kim Jones.
Marketing
What’s gone wrong at WPP? The crown slips at world’s biggest advertising group | WPP | The Guardian – “Middle-aged traditional creatives, the ones that have built a career doing traditional TV ads and posters who you’d have thought would be the most at threat of extinction, are moving very fast, teaching themselves how to master…generative AI to survive.”
Forgive the rant, but this quote from an article about WPP’s decline–and the attitude behind it–drives me absolutely crazy. Let’s do the math.
If you’re a 40-year-old creative, you were 19 when Facebook launched.You turned 21 when Twitter debuted.You were 22 when Apple introduced the iPhone, and 25 when Instagram came out.
So you’ve literally spent your entire career in advertising creating work for the digital/social/smartphone media ecosystem.
And that means you’ve produced way more digital-first and social campaigns than TV spots, let alone posters. (Also: I would love to meet the creative who “built a career” making posters.)
And creatives older than 40? They’ve successfully navigated the decline of broadcast and mass media, the introduction of smartphones, the broad shift to targeting, the endless parade of social channels and new technologies that Will Change Everything–arguably the greatest two decades of disruption the advertising industry has ever faced.
And the creatives who are over 60? They’re the generation that *invented* digital advertising. – I thought that this comment from LinkedIn was the most insightful assessment of the article
Security
Russia at war — ebook by Royal Danish Defence College – great articles including one by Anders Puck-Nielsen.
NATO Baltic Sea mission has ‘deterred’ undersea sabotage: commanders | Spacewar
Dentsu warns staff of data breach after Merkle hit by cyber ‘security incident’ | Campaign
Software
Apple employees have ‘concerns’ over Siri performance in early iOS 26.4 builds: report – 9to5Mac
Major NHS AI trial delivers unprecedented time and cost savings – GOV.UK – Microsoft 365 Copilot trial demonstrates monthly time savings of potentially 400,000 hours for NHS staff.
Technology
China calls for ‘extraordinary measures’ to achieve chip breakthroughs | FT and The Dark Horse of China’s AI Silicon: Cambricon After the Nvidia Ban | Voice of Context
Qualcomm shares jump as it launches new AI chip to rival Nvidia | FT and Nvidia to invest $1bn into Nokia as chip giant extends deal spree | FT – I keep thinking back to Cisco circa 1999 and its never-ending stream of stock-based acquisitions based on the irrational exuberance of of an elevated share price.
Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots – The New York Times – Amazon is working hard on automating more warehouse tasks with robots, targeting 600k jobs and 30 cents cost saving per item shipped. Versus Alibaba reality circa late 2017.
Wireless
Iridium develops compact chip for robust global GPS protection | Space Daily