When someone brings up how wonderfully forward looking and smart Toyota's business practices are, countering with something like the Tacoma announcement is perfectly logical. All we see recently is all these Nostradamus's who knew trucks would tumble out of favor as rapidly as they did, and ripping American car makers for producing so many trucks. So what does Toyota do? They completely illogically increase truck production, but since they aren't American we'll completely ignore that and change the subject. Toyota has made better cars for years than the Americans, of that there is no doubt, but that isn't the only thing, or even necessarily the major reason that their financials are so much better. If Toyota was based in America and had to deal with the UAW like the Big 3 does, they would not be pulling in anywhere near the profits they are. When you have to pay your employees so much more and have so many 1000's of useless middle management people, if you try and compete with international companies on a price basis, you simply aren't going to win.
Yes, if you have to pay a few hundred dollars for solar cells that are awful for the environment to save a few 10's of dollars in gas a year, it is a bad thing. You don't seem capable of grasping this overall picture concept.
Ever heard of Europe? There are quite a few cars over there that get better mileage than the 46mpg Prius. Even Ford of all companies, sells a 42mpg Focus in Europe and has just announced a 62mpg Focus for 2009. Both being diesel of course, they aren't sold here, because Americans don't like diesel cars. If Americans didn't have such an allergy to diesel vehicles, the Europeans and Americans would have plenty of at least Prius level fuel efficient cars on the market.
Why are Europe and Japan so much further ahead of us with fuel efficiency? Nothing to do with forward thinking business planning or green movements, it's because gas costs a whole lot more in those places. Regular grade gas in Japan right now is over $6.50 a gallon. A gallon of premium was $4 in Japan in March 2000. You know when I first paid $4 for a gallon of premium? May of this year. With an 8 year head start of dealing with our current gas prices in their homeland, Toyota better be ahead of us at this point.
On top of the gas prices in Japan, their highways are all toll roads that charge roughly $1 for every mile driven on them. Can you imagine that here in America? Being charged $1 for every mile you drive on a highway? I bet you would see more efficient vehicles if we had that. Not to mention the process of getting a driver's license in Japan costs roughly $3000, as compared to $25 or whatever I spent on my 1st one in NJ. Basically, it is a far more expensive proposition to own a vehicle in Japan, making it imperative for the automakers based there to maximize the frugalness of their vehicles. That has never been necessary here, so the Big 3 has never really bothered with it.
