The first crash test results for 2012 model-year cars were released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) earlier this month, and the news isn’t great. Under the stricter guidelines in place for 2011 and forward, only three cars have earned five-star composite ratings so far. Those three cars are the 2012 Cadillac CTS, Chevrolet Camaro, and Toyota Camry, and of those three cars, only the Camaro scored 5 stars in every category.

The composite scores are based on ratings (on a scale of five) for frontal, rollover, and combined side-pole and barrier crash tests. The side-pole test is new, and simulates a side-impact crash into a pole or tree that is ten inches in diameter, with a vehicle traveling at 20 mph, and impact occurring at a 75-degree angle just aft of the driver’s side A-pillar.

The chart above shows the results of the first 22 2012 models to have gone through the crash testing. NHTSA has plans to test a total of 74 models for this model year.

Last year, South Koreans bought 4,200 Toyota Camrys making it one of the best selling foreign cars in that country. Toyota believes that by producing the vehicles for that market in the US instead of Japan, it could lower the price, thus attracting even more buyers. Why is this so? Because by moving to American factories, the carmaker would be operating in dollars instead of yen, and taking advantage of the U.S. – South Korea free-trade agreement.

Apparently, even though actual shipping costs would be higher, the cost of production would be less overall if the cars were built in America.

Right now, Camrys destined for South Korea are constructed at the auto company’s plant in Toyota city, a Japanese city that used be known as Koromo, until strong ties with the car company precipitated a name-change.

There has been no announcement of when such a shift in production might take place.

While neither company has specified the platforms which will be targeted, it’s no secret that both need to work on improving the fuel economy of their SUVs and pickup trucks as the year 2025 and its 54.5 mpg Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards draw ever nearer.

Toyota, of course, has a leg up since it already builds the Prius – the most popular hybrid in the United States. Ford, on the other hand, plans to triple its existing output of hybrids to over 100,000 vehicles/year by 2013.

While both automakers currently use hybrid architectures that are pretty similar, at least in the front-wheel drive Toyota Prius and Ford Fusion Hybrid, a rear-wheel drive system will be essential in order to provide enough towing power for trucks like the Ford F-150 or the Toyota Tundra, both of which represent lines that show no sign of slowing sales, but lack hybrid options.

Such heavy vehicles, said Toyota vice president Takeshi Uchiyamada in a statement, “…are indispensable to American customers.”

What are they? Here’s the list:

1. 2011 Smart Fortwo: 33/41/36 mpg city/highway/combined
2. 2011 Audi A3 TDI: 30/42/34 mpg city/highway/combined
3. 2011 Volkswagen Golf TDI: 30/42/34 mpg city/highway/combined
4. 2011 Volkswagen Jetta TDI: 30/42/34 mpg city/highway/combined
5. 2011 Ford Fiesta SFE: 29/40/33 mpg city/highway/combined
6. 2011 Hyundai Elantra: 29/40/33 mpg city/highway/combined
7. 2011 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI: 29/39/33 mpg city/highway/combined
8. 2011 Ford Fiesta: 29/38/33 mpg city/highway/combined (non SFE)
9. 2011 Mini Cooper: 29/37/32 mpg city/highway/combined
10. 2011 Toyota Yaris: 29/36/32 mpg city/highway/combined

What’s in the Plus Performance Package? Well, there’s a seven-piece “ground effects” kit that not only makes the hybrid look a little cooler, but also reduces the drag coefficient, allowing it to seem a bit peppier on the road. The springs in the suspension are lowered, to reduce the overall ride height – Toyota says the suspension is actually track-tuned. As well, 17-inch wheels with a track-width-increasing custom offset are part of the package, though the tires remain the same. With the new rear sway bar added, Toyota says the Prius will turn quicker and lean less while doing so.

All this suavity will cost you, however. On most of the Prius trim levels the package costs $3,699. That price drops down to $2,999 on the Prius Five trim level, but that makes the overall price of the car $32,549 – kind of expensive for a vehicle meant to save you money on fuel.

In some parts of the United States, the supply of Toyota Priuses is only enough for a single day’s worth of sales, but the company is estimating that full production will be back by September.

Prius sales were down 61% last month because of Toyota’s inventory issues – the lowest sales level since September, 2004. As a result, industry analysts are calling the Prius the poster-child for inventory issues.

Last year, 140,928 Toyota Prius hybrids were sold. The highest number of sales for this car was in 2007, when 181,221 units left dealerships. Only time will tell what the ultimate sales total for 2011 will be.

If this sounds like yet another way for the federal government to invade our privacy, consider that such devices are already included in new cars, and since 2005 65% of new vehicles have boasted some kind of onboard recording device. Among the brands using them today are Ford, GM, Mazda and Toyota.

The government’s proposal, then, would simply make such devices mandatory. Already, another law set to take effect two years from now will require that the data collected by EDRs and the method of retrieving that data be made more universal. That rule came as a direct result of unintended acceleration cases in Toyota vehicles over the past few years.

Currently, most auto manufacturers are showing public support for the concept of mandatory EDRs, but they also say they don’t want such devices to be terribly complex, as this would cause them to be more expensive, which costs would have to be passed along to buyers.

But that’s not all. According to Steve St. Angelo, executive vice president of manufacturing and engineering with Toyota, production will also be dropped to half capacity on the remaining three days of the week through the same date. As well, the company will continue its habit of halting production during holidays: production will stop in Canada in observance of Victoria Day during the week of May 23rd, and in the United State in observance of Memorial Day, for the week of May 30th.

In a statement to the press, St. Angelo said, “We are trying to continue production as much as possible and keep our workforce intact in order to facilitate a smooth transition back to full production when all parts are available.”

Despite the production halts, however, Toyota says there are no plays to lay off any workers, and the days when production is stopped will be used for training and plant improvement.

The company’s very first hybrid, launched in Japan in August, 1997, was the Coaster Hybrid bus. Four months later, in December, 1997, the original Prius was put on the market.

Currently, Toyota offers sixteen different hybrid models in about eighty different countries around the world, including three commercial models sold only in Japan. By the end of next year, the carmaker intends to introduce ten new hybrids, including four redesigned models and six fresh launches.

Toyota’s first million global hybrid sales took an entire decade, but the pace of hybrid deployment has accelerated since the late 1990s, and the second million only took two years – to May, 2009. Another 21 months later, and Toyota had passed the three million hybrid milestone, this during a major downturn in automotive sales across the globe.

As business progresses, gas prices creep higher, and ecology becomes more important to more people, Toyota is growing ever closer to reaching it’s goal of selling a million hybrid cars every year.