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TODAY Monday 21 April 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
newsroom
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TODAY Monday 21 April 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Toyota Steps Out
Interesting news from Japan (please ignore irrelevant graphic, above).
Toyota has announced its goal of becoming the most eco-friendly carmarker in the world. According to a story in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal, new CEO Hiroshi Okuda is committed to producing a whole fleet of affordable, more-environmentally-benign automobiles over the course of the next five years. What's news is that he may be serious.
Observers of motordom know that car manufacturers have a tendency to use media-soaked auto shows as opportunities to showcase nifty little eco-prototypes. Five days later the prototypes get sent back to the Concepts Room while the company returns to the business of selling 5,000-pound Expeditions to soccer dads ready to take on some rugged potholes.
Toyota says it's not playing that game. The company announced a specific schedule for rolling out the new models, and on a mass production basis. Then they invited a group of American auto writers -- authentic piston-huggers -- to test-drive two of the vehicles: an all-electric version of the RAV4 sport-ute and a hybrid gasoline/electric sedan somewhere between a Corolla and a Camry in size, designed to go more than 70 miles on a gallon of gas. The RAV4-EV goes on sale in the US later this year. The hybrid will be sold in Japan this year but won't be introduced to the American market until 2000. The Journal reporter liked the cars quite a bit.
Our mentor (and Liberty Tree contributor) Amory Lovins must be feeling proverbial mixed emotions about that Toyota hybrid-power car.
Since 1990, Amory has been saying that while all-electric cars are wonderful for certain situations (urban driving, mostly), most of us won't be in the market for a vehicle limited to a range of 120 miles before recharging. Of wider benefit, he's said, would be an ultralight, ultrasafe, ultrastreamlined car whose wheels were turned by an electric motor that was powered by a small, efficient gasoline engine. (If you're interested in the details -- and details are aplenty -- go visit Amory's High Fives.) He had hoped that such a car would be mass-produced first by one of the US Big Three. And though 70 mpg is a quantum leap in fuel economy, Amory finds that figure insufficiently ambitious. Maybe the public/private Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles will actually produce a fabulous Yankee hypercar early in the new century. But for now, at least, Mr. Okuda has stolen a march on Detroit.
The tough question for him-- and for anyone prone to anxiety about tailpipe emissions -- is whether there will be customers for these kinder cars. If gasoline stays cheaper than bottled water, and if hauling capacity becomes as necessary to suburban driving as closet space is to suburban real estate, the eco-vehicles may struggle to break out from a sports-car niche. Something to watch.
TODAY ON THE SITE
Transportation is something of an obsession around here; it's arguably the most important sector of the American economy, environmentally speaking. You'll find the issue covered in High Fives (look under "Automobiles," "Trains," and "Transportation") as well as the "Technological Breakthroughs" feature in the Climate Change department of In The Trenches. Ten contributors pitched in, including the estimable Mr. Lovins.
-- New York, 21 April 97, 07:00
4/16: Coca-Cola and the Merrit Parkway
4/17: Our White Guy Problem
4/18: Victims of Extremism