Toyotaing with our hearts

Car company on national tour to pimp hybrids

Posted by Kate Sheppard at 1:55 PM on 06 Jul 2007

Read more about: green living | cars | energy | hybrids | electric vehicles

If you want to learn more about hybrids, or uh, at least Toyota's take on hybrids, the company is on a "Highway to the Future" national tour to hook some more folks on their line of hybrid cars, talk about alternative fuels, and offer some ideas about reducing your carbon footprint. And as we learned this week, you can get them up to 100 miles per hour, if you're into that sort of thing. Also, they're quickly becoming the biggest status symbol on the block, for whatever that's worth.

And for the other Brokeasses out there who fantasize about Priuses but know it'll be a long time before we can afford one, you can even test-drive one -- and Camry and Highlander hybrids, too.

Check their site for the tour schedule.

For story: Toyotaing with our hearts
3 Comments | Post a Comment

Commenters are usually quick

to point out that Toyota is not any more environmentally conscious than its competitors (it also sells lots of trucks). It's true but irrelevant. They just happen to be more innovative and forward thinking than the frat boys running our industry. They created the Prius, which is just the beginning.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:46 PM on 06 Jul 2007

Yeap

Toyota is picking up the slack in truck sales that GM and Ford are losing.

Thats what sucks about CAFE. The lead innovator company is obliged to sell highly profitable gas guzlers in tandem with their fuel sippers.

One would almost wish that there could be a system in place which rewarded companies to strive as high as possible, rather than following the herd.

http://www.newstarget.com/cartoons/greenboasting_600.jpg

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 11:19 PM on 06 Jul 2007

Prius is a pawn in a global chess game

I sure hope folks don't assume that tougher U.S. fuel-economy regulations could single-handedly stop the gas-guzzling excesses of automakers.

The biggest problem is globalization, which has fostered a corporate monoculture within the auto industry. Thirty years ago you could find a striking diversity in the basic approaches of the world's leading automakers. Today that diversity has largely disappeared. Toyota's product line is now very close to that of GM's in its range of models. For example, you can no longer buy a small pickup from Toyota, but they'd be quick to give you a rebate on a big truck just like GM's.

Also note that it doesn't just matter what kind of vehicles an automaker produces -- it also matters how many it puts on the road. Turning the Third World into one vast, autocentric dystopia will not make it any easier to address global warming. Yet Toyota is right there with all the other big players slugging it out for domination of emerging markets in China, Indonesia and India.

George Romney, when he was the iconoclastic head of tiny American Motors during the early 1960s, lambasted the Big Three as "economic imperialists." He was right. Japan's new Big Three -- Toyota, Nissan and Honda -- now operate much the same way as Detroit's. The Prius is merely a pawn in this global chess game.

by Steven T at 8:38 AM on 07 Jul 2007

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