Hybrids & CAFE: Is Toyota playing America?
Hybrid king and CAFE fighter?Toyota has received an incredible amount of positive press over its very successful Toyota Prius hybrid car. Thus, one might assume that Toyota would love to see the U.S. become as aggressive as possible regarding fuel economy - something that almost guarantees the success of Toyota's hybrid vehicles.
So, why is Toyota also joining U.S. automakers in the fight against significant increases in CAFE?
Finish: Hybrids and CAFE: Is Toyota playing America.
Labels: CAFE, fuel economy, Hybrid Vehicles, toyota prius
posted by Dahcredyns at
8:00 AM
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Toyota has received an incredible amount of positive press over its very successful Toyota Prius hybrid car. Thus, one might assume that Toyota would love to see the U.S. become as aggressive as possible regarding fuel economy - something that almost guarantees the success of Toyota's hybrid vehicles.
So, why is Toyota also joining U.S. automakers in the fight against significant increases in CAFE?
Has Toyota, much like U.S. automakers, fallen into love with the high profit margins of large trucks and SUVs?
Are large gas-guzzling vehicles funding Toyota's hybrid program?
Maybe Toyota realizes that if severe CAFE increases were to take place quickly in the U.S., it would bankrupt the U.S. auto industry, causing a significant backlash against Toyota.
Or, maybe Toyota realizes that the longer U.S. automakers continue to ignore the massive importance of fuel economy in the very near future, they are essentially sealing their bankrupt fate. Still, if that fate can be extended long enough for Toyota to build plenty of 'American-made' cars in the U.S., then maybe Americans won't blame the Japanese automaker.
Perhaps, Toyota's anti-CAFE stance is simply much like a chess move - an attempt to prolong Detroit's reluctance to accept change, so that when U.S. automakers HAVE to change, they cannot.
Ultimately, it would take very little - a major hurricane, increased problems with Iran, the bombing of an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia - to push gas prices well over $4.00 per gallon. Suddenly, Detroit's most profitable vehicles sales would completely tank, and if oil prices didn't quickly recede, how long could Detroit avoid bankruptcy?
CAFE might not be the answer to America's foreign oil dependency problems. Nonetheless, the CAFE increases currently suggested by the President and a Senate panel to be achieved by 2020 are child's play if today's fuel economy-increasing-technology is extrapolated into the future.
Ultimately, automakers can complain all they want, but the most successful automakers in 2020 will have no problem meeting the CAFE requirements currently being proposed - whether they are forced to by law or not.
Wake up or perish.
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