How Green is Toyota?

Congress is putting together the final energy bill that will go to the President to be signed. One of the issues they are debating is fuel economy and raising the CAFE standards.

Toyota, highly known for producing fuel efficient vehicles, is saying the CAFE standards will be too high.

But now Toyota is teaming up with Detroit's Big Three to scuttle legislation that would raise fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 -- a technologically feasible, and urgently needed step for a country President Bush has admitted is "addicted to oil." When our nation is contributing more C02 pollution than any other -- and fueling the global climate crisis -- isn't it the reasonable thing to do to perhaps, I don't know, become more efficient?

For those customers who bought the Prius long before it was "cool" and thought they were investing in Toyota's vision of a gas-sipping fleet, this latest move is insulting. It's a slap in the face to every driver who has helped make Toyota the first foreign company to surpass all the American car companies in sales. We believed the company when it said it was a leader, that it had a vision to sell a million hybrids a year and make its fleet 100 percent hybrid, that it wanted to help move America beyond our addiction to oil. And now this?

The article is right when they say Toyota is not leading on this issue. Right now Toyota is dominating the market on fuel efficient vehicles. If the CAFE standards are raised and everyone else is forced to make cars that get better gas mileage then that cuts into Toyota's market. Toyota is trying to save some green, unfortunately the green they are trying to save is money.