Why is it all about Toyota? What about GM and all the other American Car Manufacturers? Are they all agreeing to the new proposed standards? This website is directly targeting Toyota for leading technologies in hybrid vehicles. I think this is about Toyota protecting its technologies from these American car manufacturers. Next thing you know when Toyota says yes to these standards, these Americans Manufacturers will say that Toyota is monopolizing the American market with its hybrid systems and wants that technologies for themselves!!! The Europeans ain't complaining about it, they are developing their own novel ways... Leave Toyota alone... get your own government to support environmental protection first and come up with your own technologies...

Again why are treehuggers so enamored with Toyota? What about Honda, who actually are the most fuel efficient on the average?

I recently sent an email to Toyota through Union of Concerned Scientists' website and got this response:

Thank you for contacting Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. regarding your concerns with Toyota's position on federally mandated fuel economy increases.

We share your interest in strengthening automotive fuel economy and, in fact, are actively lobbying for a significant increase in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards (CAFE). Any assertion by anyone or any one website or blog that we are doing otherwise, is simply not true.

There are various bills before Congress that would mandate new CAFE targets by 2020 and require both cars and trucks to meet that standard. At Toyota, we favor proposed legislation known as H.R. 2927, the Hill-Terry bill. This measure is aggressive and calls for increases in CAFE by as much as 40% by 2022. Although this won't be easy, we believe it is achievable. The bill maintains separate categories for cars and trucks.

Please also note the following:

- Toyota has always exceeded federal fuel economy requirements, and our passenger car line-up has the highest CAFE rating in the automotive industry.

- Toyota is the only major automaker to consistently improve global warming performance since 2001, thanks to hybrids and better conventional technology.*

- We're totally committed to ongoing improvement of fuel economy and emissions in all of our vehicles. In fact, our commitment to this is so deep, we spend $23 million every day on green initiatives and research.

We are continuously striving to improve our fuel economy, regardless of federal mandates.

So please understand that we, too, strongly support increased fuel economy standards. It's the right thing to do-and, we hope that we've been able to provide a little more insight into our environmental commitments and actions.

To learn more, please visit our corporate blog and see our recent posts regarding this topic at http://blog.toyota.com/2007/10/post.html and at http://blog.toyota.com/2007/09/irvs-sheet-a-ca.html.

Thank you for your interest in Toyota and the environment.

Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc.
Corporate Communications

toyota_corp_comm@toyota.com

I received the exact same response as Frank. I forwarded it to Union of Concerned scientists and asked them for a response. I'm still waiting.

Gotta love the old circular firing squad -- target the company which has done the most to advance fuel efficiency technology, instead of the ones who have lagged considerably and have fought legislation much more.

Brilliant.

Again why are treehuggers so enamored with Toyota? What about Honda, who actually are the most fuel efficient on the average?

When your car gets more than 23 mpg, come back and talk.

Toyota wants GM and Ford to continue to produce large, less efficient cars, so that Toyota can keep the Prius as the ultimate green machine on the market. So not supporting better fuel standards is maintaining Toyota's market share over efficiency conscious buyers. hopefully with a plug in version coming soon. though unlikely since they spent $ on advertising saying the beauty of the hibrid is not having to plug it in.

@ FrankG "At Toyota, we favor proposed legislation known as H.R. 2927, the Hill-Terry bill. This measure is aggressive and calls for increases in CAFE by as much as 40% by 2022. Although this won't be easy, we believe it is achievable. The bill maintains separate categories for cars and trucks. "

For everyones information This bill is also supported by the other Auto Alliance automakers. See http://www.autoalliance.org/fuel/
The members include:

BMW Group
DaimlerChrysler
Ford Motor Company
General Motors
Mazda
Mitsubishi Motors
Porsche
Toyota
Volkswagen of America, Inc.

So Anonymous you stating that "Toyota wants GM and Ford to continue to produce large, less efficient cars, so that Toyota can keep the Prius as the ultimate green machine on the market. So not supporting better fuel standards is maintaining Toyota's market share over efficiency conscious buyers. hopefully with a plug in version coming soon. though unlikely since they spent $ on advertising saying the beauty of the hibrid is not having to plug it in. " is incorrect as they all support H.R. 2927, the Hill-Terry bill.

BTW my Honda V6 gets 25MPG on my commute and more than that highway.

To all Treehuggers, please realize they while the Prius is great tech. it doesn't magically make Toyota a super green car company. Also while some vilify GM and Ford for being late to the party on hybrids so was everyone else besides Honda and Toyota. You can't use the, Well Ford and GM make big Trucks and SUVs argument because so does Toyota/Lexus and has for years as do many others.

Toyota vs honda thing has also a lot to do with the longevity of cars, toyotas seem to last well past what people think is reasonable in many cases, some try to drive them into the ground but then are forced to give them away when they just become umberasing but refuse to give up. Thats my experience.