The world’s largest carmaker, Japan-based Toyota Motor Corp (TMC), announced a new non-exclusive $12-million partnership with the world’s largest software vendor, Microsoft Corp, that will see telematics systems in upcoming Toyota hybrid vehicles powered by Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing platform.

From 2008 to 2009, global production of vehicles declined by 13.50-percent to almost 70-million cars manufactured in 2009, the biggest decline in over a decade, as demand fell amid the global financial crisis.

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Japanese-based Toyota, who is now the top carmaker in the world after edging out General Motors earlier in the year, has announced a new massive $50-million common stock investment in Telsa Motors.

The investment will see both firms cooperating on jointly developing cost effective fuel-efficient battery powered electric vehicles. The firms will jointly work together on developing various systems including parts and new systems that will see even more efficient vehicles in the future.

Telsa co-founder and chief executive Elon Musk said today in a statement, “It is an honor and a powerful endorsement of our technology that Toyota would choose to invest in and partner with Tesla,”

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A new batch of vehicle recalls were announced early today by Japanese carmaker Nissan, as the industry struggles with record recalls due to component failures.

Nissan said it is recalling more than 540,000 vehicles mainly for two problems. First, on select models, the fuel gauge displays inaccurate fuel levels, indicating the car is plenty of fuel when it is almost empty.

The second problem, and potentially a more serious problem, that Nissan has identified is related to braking pedal pins that come lose in turn not allowing the drive to slow the car down. The affected models with the brake issue include the 2008-2010 Nissan Titan, Infiniti QX56 (also affected with the fuel gauge issue), Nissan Armada, and the Nissan Quest.

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Toyota has announced the company would recall up to 3.8 million cars because of a problem with the removable floor mats on the drivers side.

Toyota says, “A stuck open accelerator pedal may result in very high vehicle speeds and make it difficult to stop the vehicle, which could cause a crash,”

Last August, a fatal crash occurred when a driver of a Lexus ES reported to an emergency operator of failing breaks and accelerating speeds, that car eventually crashed, subsequently killing four occupants.

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Costco Wholesale Corp sales have dropped by 1% in October, citing unfavorable exchange rates, while analysts were expecting about a 3.5% increase. Coscto has 546 warehouses, including 400 in the US, and 46 in Canada. Rationally, we can also expect that sales have decreased because consumers have curbed descrietionary spending because of global economic concerns. This is also evident in higher priced goods such as cars. Toyota has seen its lowest profits since 1990 where profits dropped by 70% last quarter. Toyota’s net profit during the July-September quarter had plunged by 69%. In addition, Isuzu, another Japanese car maker, also declined its profit forecast to ¥40 billion, down from ¥85 billion. All other car makers have also experienced significant. It is clear that people are not spending their money amid global economic concerns. In the next few days, I will write do a write up on what caused the global financial crisis as people are still not very sure how it all happened.