See the behind the scenes on the making of the commercials for the all-new Toyota Prius v commercials. More Prius, more possibilities! Learn more about the largest member of the Prius Family at www.toyota.com

Google’s autonomous fleet has been clandestinely racking up the computer-driven miles, and so far, their autonomous autos have been fault-free. One minor incident happened when a car was rear-ended, but the Skynet Google cars have yet to incur any points on their virtual licenses. Earlier this week, ABC News got the chance to go for a spin in one of the tech company’s automated cars, riding shotgun in a computer-controlled Toyota Prius. The engineers from Google explain that the Prius utilizes a series of cameras and a roof-mounted, spinning laser to see what is going on around it. The result is a vehicle which might just be safer than one with a human behind the wheel. However, according to the report, the goal of the system is not to completely remove the driver from the equation, the system is pitched as more of a “super cruise-control” than a full auto-drive system. The theory is that it would be useful for traffic-filled commutes to and from work, and it might be a nice solution to eliminate or reduce distracted-driving. Get a phone call? Hit the Google button and let the car have the wheel while you take your call. Becky Worley, the news correspondent in the video clip, even gets up the guts to give the Google car a real-life brake test. She steps in front of it as it’s motoring down the road. What happens? The car “sees” her and slams on the binders. Check it all out in the video after the jump. [Source: ABC News]

First let me say that my original dealings with Toyota and Rohrich Toyota in Pittsburgh were the kinds of customer relationship people dream of. I got a good price on my 2002 Toyota, when I had a transmission problem it was pricy but reasonable. Then a year went by, I made the last payment and had a minor vibration in my steering on a cold day and only when turning the wheel to the left. I checked the Toyota site for recalls. pressroom.toyota.com Fantastic! There was a Toyota recall about that very thing (see the Toyota recall June 1, 2011). As I usually do I asked for the old parts returned. That didn’t happen this time. And this video is what my steering does now. Come on Toyota, I’m not a mechanical engineer but either Rohrich didn’t do the recall or you haven’t diagnosed the problem correctly. I will let you know how it turns out. Got a call from the Rohric service manager and apparently the recall had two parts. If the replacement of the nuts didn’t fix it you were supposed to call back in and an additional part is ordered. According to the Service manager only a very small fraction of people need this second part but those that do will get it on the second call. The part has to come in tomorrow so I’m without a car for a day but I accept that this isn’t something that affected every vehicle. And the service manager at Rohrich is great. I’ll be cautious tomorrow but my optimism about Toyota and Certainly Rohrich has returned from a “brief” haiatus.

The holidays are a time for sharing. So this year, from December 12-21, Toyota is rewarding those who use social media to do just that—share. If you get a new Toyota during Toyotathon and tweet a simple pre-canned message to your followers, you can earn a prepaid debit card worth 0. Each time your followers retweet it, you get another (up to 00) and they get entered to win a new Prius. For more information, visit toyota.com/shareathon.

3 minutes How you Charge up your Chevy Volt , Plug in Prius or Tesla Sports car at a charge station or at home with a Home charging station. With scenes from the 34th World Energy Engineering Congress Exhibit at Chicago’s Navy Pier Oct 2011