Driving Denial: How Toyota’s Unholy Alliance with Climate Deniers Threatens Climate Progress - Public Citizen
Driving Denial: How Toyota’s Unholy Alliance with Climate Deniers Threatens Climate Progress - Public Citizen
Toyota is no longer the green darling that it was nearly three decades ago when it introduced the Prius.
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/52623372
I'm shocked. Given all the climate marketing materials I've seen about their cars and considering the company practically invented the hybrid electric vehicle, I wouldn't have thought they're working to weaken climate policies. It's not often that an article so profoundly changes my view of a company.
They backed the wrong horse and bet on hydrogen. Now they are stuck with hybrids and have no real electric vehicle offerings. So in markets where there’s still demand for gas cars (US), they’re probably still doing ok. But in markets where electrics are taking over the market (China, some EU countries) they’re screwed.
I’d like to see Toyota bring back cheap compact vehicles to the US. It could fill a niche, and give them more time to pivot.
Honda just announced a merger with Nissan to shore up their EV engineering and expand factories.
They had a record year in 2023 and were outperforming 2023 for the first 3 quarters of 2024 (full year 2024 will be released later i guess). So right now they are still doing fine, but they need to change something for the future.