Toyota!: Building Cars in the 21st Century

February 23, 2007

We are thinking about getting a new car.. which has meant for me an unaccustomed level of interest in car brands. I find myself looking at the backs of cars to see what they are. In this state of mind I could not help but be interested in the long article on Toyota that ran in the New York Times Magazine (Feb. 18, 2007). The article explains something about the history of the company and how they are poised to become the leading automaker in the world.

The article provides some insights as to how environmental concerns influence a modern corporation. Toyota is the maker of the Prius.. a nifty little car with "Hybrid Synergy Drive" enabling it to get 55 mpg. The car is an environmental favorite (and if we could afford it, it would be at the top of our to-buy list). So one might be tempted to call Toyota an environmentally friendly corporation for having the vision to develop and market this car.

As you read through the article, though, you come across the efforts to market their new big pickup.. the Tundra. Here are the five types of people that Toyota is targeting with this truck:

1) fishers and outdoorsmen; 2) home-improvement types; 3) Nascar fans; 4) motorcycle enthusiasts; and 5) country-music lovers.

Clearly a conservative group of people. I would love to see the "types" of people to whom they market the Prius.. it would undoubtedly contain "university professors" as one of their targets. This puts in perspective the nature of corporate connection with environmentalism. It is not a moral decision so much as a market decision. The Prius will have its buyers; the Tundra will have its buyers.

At the end of his article Jon Gertner raises a pointed question about the nature of the corporate response to the threat of high levels of carbon in the air. He recognizes the cumulative value of the small engineering improvements that Toyota is using to make its cars more efficient and cleaner. At the same time the trend in number of cars is heading steeply upwards.. currently there are about 3/4 of a billion cars in the world, but by 2050 we could see over 2 billion cars in the world. Needless to say, all of them will be consuming gas. Gertner points out the implications of this growth:

Accommodating those cars will entail building new roads and new factories and spending vast amounts of energy to make shipments. All those activities will create enormous emissions on their own. So even with giant strides in clean-vehicle technology, just doubling the number of vehicles could increase the overall environmental effect by a factor of three.

I find that an important point. What we are dealing with as we look to the next few decades is not simply a matter of tweaking cars so that they all perform like Priuses.. It is the need to find a solution for the continued growth of a culture that consumes energy prodigiously. We need to not just find ways to do what we do in a green fashion. We need to change the fundamental way we do things. It is as simple as that.

This is the reason for a degree of environmental pessimism. I admire California for taking the initiative to cap carbon emissions.. and to generally move in a green direction. But the sprawl of Los Angeles makes sense only if you can imagine a car. What needs to happen is a re-working of that lifestyle.. which is looked upon as nearly God-given by a large number of Californians (and Americans).

Don't get me wrong. I am all about baby-steps; I understand the pragmatic value of inching ever closer to a specific goal for emissions. But there may come a time when baby-steps are not enough.. and we need to make a break.. a life re-design. I fear that when that time comes, we will find ourselves saddled with an American landscape that was short-sightedly allowed to grow according to the dictates of profit-driven corporations.. We will find ourselves the possessors of a landscape whose primary necessity is a car and lots of cheap energy.