Toyota: Mean and Not So Green?

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As a manufacturer of gas/electric hybrid cars, Toyota [11] has enjoyed a public image as an environmentally responsible company. Toyota runs television ads [12] playing up the "green" appeal of its Prius hybrid. So it was particularly disappointing to find that Toyota has been nominated to Corporate Accountability International [13]'s 2008 Corporate Hall of Shame [14] for being substantially less green than the automaker has led the public to believe. Toyota has been quietly lobbying against a proposal to increase vehicle fuel efficiency standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The company also belongs to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers [15] and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, two trade groups suing to stop a new California law to reduce greenhouse gases. Toyota has also opposed bills in several states that would require cars emit less pollution, and that would require a percentage of cars sold to be low or zero-emission vehicles. And thanks to models like the Tundra, a gas-guzzling pickup truck that gets an average of 14 miles per gallon, Toyota's fleet-wide fuel efficiency standards are actually lower now than they have been in two decades.