Lexus announces today the official launch of the LFA, a two-seat supercar scheduled to go into production at the end of 2010 as the pinnacle of the Lexus “F” premium sports car series. Pre-sales start today.

Ultra-responsive and extremely stable even when taken to the edge, the LFA creates a sense of reassurance that opens up a new world of driving emotion, exhilarating the senses to move the driver in more ways than one.

The LFA combines high output, superb chassis design and meticulous aerodynamics to achieve instantaneous total-vehicle response characterized by high-rev, seamless acceleration echoed by a self-defining resonance from its 4.8-liter V10.

Only 500 units of the LFA are to be produced and sold worldwide.

A prototype of the LFA is now on display at the 41st Tokyo Motor Show, which is open to the general public from October 24 to November 4 at Makuhari Messe in Makuhari, Chiba Prefecture.

 Nissan Motor Co. plans to bring a new global small car to the United States after 2010 that will be positioned below its current entry-level product, the Nissan Versa.

Speaking at the company’s headquarters here today, officials said the U.S. market will be part of a major campaign to sell 1 million vehicles a year from a newly created low-cost “V platform.”

The small platform will yield three models: a four-door sedan, a five-door hatchback and a multipurpose vehicle. They will replace the subcompact Micra that is now sold in markets around the world other than the United States.

The European Micra is built at Nissan’s Sunderland, England, plant. It shares a platform with the Japan-market March.

Vincent Cobee, V platform manager, said the plan is Nissan’s effort to dig deeper into the small A and B segments of the auto industry, which, he said, is capturing a growing share of world vehicle sales. The new vehicle will contain a three-cylinder engine.

The current Micra is 146 inches long, almost 2 feet shorter than the 169-inch Versa.

Cobee and other project managers declined to reveal the official name of the upcoming vehicle or say when it will appear at U.S. dealerships. The new platform will be manufactured at five plants around the world, he said, launching first in Thailand in March 2010.

Cobee also declined to specify which of the three models would be offered to U.S. dealers.

Toyota Motor Corp. is ramping up its push on gasoline-electric hybrids, launching a new model in Japan and taking on up-and-coming competitor Hyundai Motor Co. in its Korean home market with its flagship Prius.

Toyota said today it aims to sell 36,000 units a year of its new Sai hybrid sedan in Japan, taking another step towards its goal of selling 1 million hybrid vehicles annually worldwide soon after 2010.The Sai sedan is the second hybrid-only model under the Toyota brand after the Prius, and is a repackaged version of the Lexus HS250h hybrid, which went on sale in June.

In an effort to alleviate losses from the yen’s rapid rise against the dollar, Honda Motor Co. may move production of the popular Fit small car to the United States.

President Takanobu Ito called the shift a “highly likely possibility.”

“Considering the foreign exchange, such a structural reform might be called for,” Ito told Automotive News in an interview today. “That is the sort of direction we are considering.”

The fuel-efficient Fit has weathered the U.S. market slump better than its bigger counterparts in Honda’s lineup. Sales of the hatchback were down 12 percent to 55,475 units for the first nine months of the year, compared with a 25 percent drop for all of American Honda’s lineup.

But all Fits are imported from Japan. And the yen’s 8 percent increase in value against the dollar since August has made their already small profit margins even smaller. A higher yen reduces the value of dollar-denominated revenues that are repatriated to Japan.

About 80 percent of the cars Honda sells in the States are made locally; the rest are imported. Ito said he wants to keep that ratio. But he wants imports to be more high-tech models such as hybrid vehicles, which require the special suppliers and manufacturing plants found in Japan.

“If we could shift this 20 percent to other, higher-value-added technologies, that would be good,” Ito said.

He did not say where in the United States the Fit might be built.

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. today announced plans to begin Japan-wide sales starting February 2010, of the Honda Bicycle Simulator developed for the purpose of traffic safety education. By safely experiencing the possible risks bicycle riders may face, users will improve their ability to predict risks and increase safety awareness. In addition, rider evaluation session which will follow the riding simulation will help users learn traffic rules and manners in an enjoyable way.

Honda will aim for widespread use of this simulator by a range of customers including public offices, law-enforcement organizations, driving schools and educational institutions which conduct bicycle safety education programs primarily for school children and senior citizens. Honda will begin accepting pre-sale orders in November of this year.

Aisin Seiki Co., the world’s fifth-largest auto parts supplier, will sell part of its brakes business to Advics Co., a joint venture Aisin helped start with Toyota Motor Corp.

As part of the deal, Aisin will transfer two brake units from Japan and the United States, along with a portion of the supplier’s plant in Kariya, Japan.

Aisin will become the latest in a string of major suppliers to unload portions of their brake units. Last month, Germany’s Robert Bosch GmbH closed the sale of its foundation brake manufacturing business to Tokyo’s Akebono Brake Industry Co. Ltd. And Michigan’s Delphi agreed in March to sell the remaining pieces of its global brake and suspension units to Chinese-owned BeijingWest Industries Co. The then-bankrupt supplier had previously arranged to unload at least seven other brake plants.Advics was formed in July 2001 through the combination of brake businesses owned by powertrain and electronics supplier Denso Corp., electronics company Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. and Toyota. At the time, Toyota indicated that it wanted Advics, an electronic and foundation brake company, to gain scale to compete with the leading global brake suppliers.