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Environmental Fringe Groups Gas Up Anti-Toyota Talk

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By DORON LEVIN, Bloomberg News

Published: November 28, 2007

Just moments ago, or so it seems, Toyota Motor Corp. was the darling of environmentalists, basking in kudos for creating the gasoline-electric hybrid Prius, a car long on mileage and looks.

How quickly bouquets can turn into barbs. At a news conference in Los Angeles on Nov. 14, Bob Carter, head of Toyota-branded vehicles, introduced the automaker's new, larger Sequoia sport utility vehicle.

Afterward, a man pretending to be a journalist (actually a representative of the Rainforest Action Network, one of many environmental activist groups) confronted Carter. With his video camera aimed at Carter, the activist demanded: "Sir, why not pull Toyota off of the California dealer lots?"

Carter, forgetting his media-manners training, shoved the man's video camera to the ground. Police officers eventually escorted the imposter out.

I can hardly blame the Toyota executive for losing his cool. It must be maddening to go from hero to goat in the blink of an eye. As Toyota inches toward becoming the world's largest automaker, it's getting a tutorial in what it has been like to be General Motors, the current leader and longtime focus of social critics and self-appointed reformers.

While Toyota was introducing its biggest, most fuel-hungry Sequoia ever, based on the same chassis used by the new Toyota Tundra pickup, GM was introducing its Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, powered by a gas-electric hybrid. The Tahoe hybrid is supposed to improve the vehicle's fuel economy by 50 percent in the city.

From Horsepower To Green

Eco-friendliness is replacing horsepower as a basic tenet of automotive marketing, and GM wants to burnish its image to stay ahead of Toyota. But being the leader is a mixed blessing.

The target on the back of No. 1 is especially tempting to those who view personal transportation, particularly vehicles such as Tahoes and Sequoias, as a form of villainy. In bygone days, GM took its lumps from Ralph Nader's safety campaigns. Toyota now has www.truthabouttoyota .com, a Web site that accuses the automaker of "talking out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to increasing fuel economy."

But the latest anti-Toyota campaign is more than just the price the automaker pays as it nears leadership status. Any automaker is liable to be slimed these days by activists simply because they build vehicles that burn fossil fuels, which rightly or wrongly are blamed for global climate change.

Toyota's main crime seems to be its support of federal regulation that would raise Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards, though not as high as the fringe environmental movement favors. As Voltaire said, the enemy of the perfect is the good.

Taking A Look At Mileage

The U.S. Senate has proposed legislation that would raise the standard by 2020 to 35 miles per gallon, for the first time combining cars and light trucks. The rule now requires 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.2 mpg for light trucks.

The House of Representatives has been discussing an average increase to 32 mpg to 35 mpg, with a critical difference from the Senate's proposal: car and light truck categories would remain separate, making the standard easier to achieve.

Neither standard is as effective as a broad-based energy tax to reduce consumption. The auto industry has given up trying to explain that argument to lawmakers and the public. Toyota's executives in the United States think they could comply with the stricter CAFE rules; but the automaker has decided to cast its lot with Detroit.

A few years ago U.S. automakers invited Toyota to join the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a then newly constituted industry group representing the 10 largest vehicle makers in the United States, including GM, Ford and Chrysler. Previously, Toyota had been excluded.

The U.S. environmental movement's pressure tactics are designed to peel Toyota from the U.S. carmakers and thus weaken the industry's bargaining position with respect to fuel standards. It isn't likely to happen soon.

The Toyoda family in Japan remembers and appreciates the fact the automaker it founded was invited to be a U.S. industry insider. Fortunately, Toyota was smart enough to align its interests with automaking and the American public, not the radical greens.

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