The successor to the Lexus LFA is beginning to take shape — in unofficial rumors, at least. The firm's next supercar will reportedly make its debut in the coming years with a V8 under the hood, and it will be followed by a battery-electric model due out at the turn of the decade.

Citing anonymous inside sources, Japanese magazine Best Car wrote that the long-awaited car that will take the torch from the limited-edition LFA will land in showrooms in 2025. As we've previously reported, it will be powered by a gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain built around a mysterious 4.0-liter V8 engine fitted with two turbochargers. The publication adds that the coupe, whose name hasn't been confirmed, will be launched as a regular-production model and that it will be built on a version of Toyota's TNGA-L platform. This is the same architecture found under the LC and the LS, among models, and using these foundations should allow Lexus to keep the car's cost in check.

In what may be the single greatest tie-up the PlayStation generation never knew it wanted, Sony and Honda have officially confirmed that they will work together to produce electric cars under a new joint-venture company.

"Specifically, the two companies will establish a joint venture (hereinafter referred to as "new company") to jointly develop and sell high-value-added electric vehicles (EVs) through the new company, and will also provide services for mobility," Honda's translated announcement said. The announcement also said that the agreement demonstrates their "intention to become a vehicle," but as rough as the past two years have been, we're going to chalk that one up to a translation error rather than early signs of an existential crisis.

Despite the great EV rush across the auto industry, some are still exploring designs that use alternative fuels like hydrogen. Alpine, in a project with the Istituto Europeo di Design, one of the top transportation design schools in the world, has created a hydrogen-powered supercar that will be revealed on March 18. For now, it's being teased.

Alpine has revealed precious little about the car so far. Called the Alpine A4810, it was designed in collaboration with 28 IED students as part of their Master in Transportation Design program's thesis project. As such, the emphasis is going to be on design, with a low, rounded prow carrying on Alpine tradition. The brand's signature quad headlamps take on a hexagonal shape rather than the typical round units, and a new LED lighting signature spans the width of the front.

Subaru has just unveiled a special variant of the Levorg dubbed the Takuty Special Edition and set to be sold exclusively through Subaru Tokyo.

TOKYO — A Tokyo court gave Greg Kelly, a former American executive at Nissan Motor charged with underreporting his boss Carlos Ghosn's pay, a suspended sentence, but cleared him of most of the charges.

The verdict announced Thursday of a 6-month sentence suspended for three years will allow Kelly to return to the U.S. during an appeal. Kelly's defense lawyers said they will appeal. It was unclear if prosecutors would also do so.

Check any forum focused on the Nissan Z and you'll find threads full of reservation holders and enthusiasts who can't wait for the Z's arrival. You can then imagine the horde that ran to a quickly deleted Facebook post wherein one Tommy Bennet posted the above slide with the caption, "This is what I know." The post wasn't up long, attracting just 26 comments and one share before being taken down — but not before it was spotted by the New Nissan Z forum and Motor1. What matters is that the slide was posted by a dealer salesman (unless his account was hacked), Mr. Bennet still appearing on the staff page of Mountain View Nissan of Cleveland, Tennessee. So while we can't know where the slide originated, we know it was posted by someone with an interest in letting potential buyers know when the new Z will be here. The slide indicates "here" will happen sometime this summer.      

Production starts this month, which appears to have some corroboration. A poster at the New Nissan Z forum wrote on February 28, "I actually just replied on another thread today that reports that the Z had already gone into production were not accurate. Dan Passe confirmed 'not yet.'" Passe is the director of product PR at Nissan North America, and he gave a thumbs up to the comment. Production will happen at Nissan's Tochigi, Japan plant dedicated to luxury, sports, and electrified vehicles. It's built the Fairlady Z since 2004 and the GT-R since 2007, among other vehicles. The automaker completed a $285 million overhaul at Tochigi in 2020 to deliver its new generation of electrified and intelligent automobiles.

There are few car companies as dedicated to the creation of bizarre vehicles as Japan’s Mitsuoka. By that measure, this 1991 Le-Seyde certainly doesn’t disappoint and it’s for sale in Ferndale, Washington.

The Subaru (Impreza) WRX stands among the ranks of the greatest compact cars of all time and has long inspired ardent devotion from its fans. Now in its fifth generation, its maker saw fit to look back at the nameplate’s 30-year history.

The Carlos Ghosn saga continues to rumble on, with a Tokyo court set to deliver a verdict on former Nissan Motor director Greg Kelly on Thursday, March 3. Kelly is being accused of helping Ghosn conceal $80 million from financial regulators.

Good morning and welcome to our daily digest of automotive news from around the globe, starting with…

TOKYO — Toyota will restart domestic production from Wednesday after a cyberattack on a supplier ground the automaking giant's factories to a one-day halt, sparking concerns about vulnerability in Japan's Inc's supply chain.

No information was available about who was behind the attack, nor the motive. It came just after Japan joined Western allies in clamping down on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine, although it was unclear whether the attack was related.

Six weeks ago, word got out that Ford's VP of sales for the U.S. and Canada wrote one of those "It has come to our attention..." e-mails to the automaker's dealer body. The VP's problem was dealers trying to get reservation deposits for the Ford F-150 Lightning well above the official $100 fee. The tomfoolery resulted in interactions "with customers in a manner that is negatively impacting customer satisfaction and damaging to the Ford Motor Company brand and Dealer Body reputation." Two weeks later, GM told its dealers to cut out the reservation gaming and the markups on the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06, banditry that's been going on for two years. Two weeks ago, Ford was back at it, this time about markups on the Bronco. Last week, Asian automakers swept into the melee, with Hyundai and Genesis, Subaru, and Infiniti writing letters to their dealers to deliver some variant of, "Stop pissing off the customers."

Automotive News reported an SVP at Hyundai Motor America and the COO at Genesis Motor North America sent letters to their dealers expressing disappointment at "certain pricing practices which, if left unchecked, will have a negative impact on the health of our brand." One of the practices mentioned was dealer markups, another was the bait-and-switch, with dealers advertising one price then charging a higher price once the customer showed up at the lot. The letters acknowledged that dealers are separate companies to the automakers and have the right to set their own prices. The automakers cannot interfere with that; their leverage is distributing allocations and perks such as advertising support and financial incentives. So, like a movie boss letting the protagonist go on a technicality, the brands wrote, "we cannot stand idly by watching the actions of the aforementioned dealers undo all the efforts we collectively have put into making these brands what they are today."

Toyota announced today that it would be temporarily shutting down 28 production lines at 14 of its plants in Japan as of March 1. This is due to what Toyota called "a system failure" with one of its suppliers, Kojima Industries, which produces a wide array of interior and exterior parts for cars, as well as some mechanical components.

Reuters spoke with a Kojima representative who said the company believes it was a cyber attack. None of the companies has said anything as to who may have perpetrated the attack. The news organization further reported that Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kushida announced the government would be looking into it, as well as the possibility that Russia was involved. Last week, Japan instituted sanctions against Russia after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

There has been one generation of the Lexus RC, the Japanese luxury maker's sports coupe meant to mix it with offerings like the Audi A5, BMW 4 Series, and Mercedes C-Class. Instead of doing that, it has hung back in the enthusiast consciousness with the Infiniti Q60, a car you remember — and remember is actually pretty good — when someone else brings it up. At least one exec at Toyota wants to change that for the next-gen RC, assuming we get one.

David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development (TRD), spoke to Car and Driver at the recent 24 Hours of Daytona. C/D said Wilson "hinted" the coming RC will look at the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT3 concept revealed as last month's Tokyo Auto Salon for inspiration, the target being to create a better performing race car for global GT3 competitions, which will breed a better performing road car. "It's fairly safe to connect the dots and suggest that [the GR GT3 concept] could be a precursor to the next global GT3 car for Lexus," he said.