Hybrids
and CAFE: Is Toyota playing America?
Wednesday,
May 30, 2007
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?
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.
posted
by Dahcredyns at
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