Three Toyotas Make Car and Driver’s "Stingy" List

Being stingy might not be the most admirable of human traits, but when your car is stingy with fuel, well, that’s very admirable indeed.

So we’re pleased to note that Car and Driver recently named three Toyota vehicles to a list it calls, "Stingiest Sippers: 10 most fuel-efficient vehicles in the US."

The stingiest car of all, according to Car and Driver? It’s the same car that gets top mpg honors from the EPA – the Prius. Car and Driver calls it "the gold standard for fuel economy," and says that the Prius is notable not only for EPA fuel economy numbers of 48/city, 45/highway and 46/combined, but for what the magazine calls, "the impressively low price, and the unique, futuristic lines that house a large amount of usable space."

On Being "Green"

When people think of Toyota being a "green" company, very often they think of Prius and our other hybrid vehicles. But we do a lot more than build and sell great hybrids.

For instance, our new 350,000 sq-ft Toyota Technical Center in Michigan is being built to minimize our environmental footprint in construction of this facility, to the point of sourcing building materials locally, using recycled materials, achieving a 40% reduction in water use, and, in the facility’s interior, employing low-emitting paints and adhesives. The facility’s design limits runoff of silt and storm water, and its roads are paved with crushed materials sourced from buildings that previously occupied the site.

We’re taking other steps, as well. For example, we’ve recently achieved a breakthrough in painting our vehicles that basically eliminates one of several oven-drying steps, thereby reducing the energy used in the paint process by 15%.

The 50-liter Challenge

Proving once again that there are more ways to attack a problem than you might think, a publication called "Canadian Driver" recently conducted an experiment to see which car could travel the greatest distance on 50 liters of fuel.

These folks pulled together a group of 13 compact cars with the following two qualifications: Each had to have an MSRP of less than $20,000 and a fuel tank that would contain about 50 liters of fuel.

So, how much is 50 liters? It’s right at 13.2 gallons, a fairly standard measure for compact cars. And, conveniently, it’s precisely what a Corolla tank contains. The point of this was to measure the actual driving range of the vehicles in real-world conditions. The same as figuring miles per gallon, but different.

Testing also was different. This bunch filled the cars up, then drove them until each vehicle ran out of fuel. No such niceties as actually stopping for gas when the little emergency thingie in the gas gauge lit up to warn of impending doom.

Dealerships and Environmental LEEDership

It wasn’t long ago that auto dealerships served as a symbolic target of environmentalists.

Dealerships are still a symbolic target, but now environmentalists are pointing to them as a symbol of what sustainable building is all about.

Toyota of Rockwall (Texas) recently became the first dealership in the country to receive a Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Earlier, Pat Lobb Toyota (McKinney, Texas) was the first dealership in the nation recognized by LEED, earning Silver certification.

At Toyota, we actively encourage our dealers to embrace environmental issues. At least six other Toyota dealerships are expected to receive LEED certification by the end of the summer. And now dealers for other manufacturers are beginning to build facilities for LEED certification.

Report: NHTSA Nods to Toyota for CAFE

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released its March ’08 “Summary of Fuel Economy Performance” Report last week for 2007 model-year vehicles.

The report, which ranks automakers according to their Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE), ranked Toyota Motor Sales (Toyota, Scion and Lexus vehicles) No. 1 for large automakers, with a fleet average of 29.69 miles per gallon (MPG), followed by Honda with 29.47, and Hyundai with 29.39. Lotus, which sells about 600 cars annually in the U.S., topped the list with a fleet average of 30.2 mpg. Here’s a look at the rankings:

• ’07 Toyota – 29.69 mpg
• ‘07 Honda – 29.47
• ’07 Hyundai – 29.39
• ’07 Kia – 28.44
• ’07 Subaru – 28.11
• ’07 Nissan – 27.64
• ’07 VW – 27.38
• ’07 Suzuki – 27.08
• ’07 BMW – 26.76
• ’07 Mitsubishi – 26.67
• ’07 GM – 25.16
• ’07 Ford – 25.15
• ’07 DCX – 23.97
• ’07 Lotus – 30.2

Click here for the full report from NHTSA.

- Ron Kirkpatrick, National Manager, External/Internal Communications

Venza: From the Sketch Pad to the Street

With the Toyota Venza arriving at dealerships later this year, we thought it would be cool to do a series of posts dedicated to this all-new product. With that in mind, we asked Venza exterior designer Ian Cartabiano, from Toyota’s Calty Design Research studio in Newport Beach, Calif., to take us through the early sketch process. The video below is the result.

It’s always interesting to see how a product goes from the sketch pad to the streets. For comparison, we’ve included a few photos of the 2009 Toyota Venza on Flickr. Please note that the vehicle in the photos is a prototype with optional equipment. Production models may vary.

- Scott De Yager, Corporate Communications

Cars You Don’t Have to Feel Guilty About

So you think maybe wealthy people aren’t just like you, that they’re not annoyed at current gas prices, and that they don’t crave the élan that comes from driving vehicles that suggest "greenness?"

If you think that, you’re wrong, according to a piece published recently on Forbes.com. Wealthy people want the same things from the cars that the rest of us do, according to Jacqueline Mitchell, who wrote the piece. They want a decent car, they want good fuel economy, and they most certainly don’t want to have to eat a big chunk of depreciation when it comes time to trade off their cars. And they like feeling just a little bit "green."

So using a formula that included new and used vehicle prices, lease residuals and EPA fuel-economy ratings, the folks at Forbes developed a list of vehicles that they call "Guilt-Free Luxury Cars." And naturally, the list included not only a trio of Lexus vehicles, but also a surprising entry carrying the Toyota badge.

The Forbes folks judge the Lexus RX 400h hybrid to be a "guilt-free luxury car" because its combined EPA mpg rating is 25 mpg and it has a high residual value of 54%.

Running Out of Gas

There’s something very strange going on here in California. And no, I don’t mean all the usual strange stuff that most of the rest of the country seems to think always goes on here, but which we Californians find quite normal. You know, tofu, rock massages, things like that.

I’m talking about this weird flirtation that California’s drivers apparently are conducting with the "Empty" mark on their cars’ gas gauges.

What’s happening, according to news reports, is that the number of drivers running out of gas on California’s freeways is growing. Pundits suggest two possible reasons for this.

The first is that drivers, completely bummed at gas prices currently well beyond $4 per gallon, are stretching the fuel supplies in their gas tanks just a bit too far. Stretching them, in fact, beyond the actual available supplies of fuel in said tanks. Result: Out of gas on the freeway.

Toyota Offers Bluetooth on 15 Models

You all know Bluetooth, right? That’s the system that allows you to use a compatible mobile phone hands-free.

Often it involves linking your phone to a Bluetooth-enabled earpiece. Unless you’re a Toyota driver. That’s because we currently offer integrated Bluetooth hands-free wireless systems in 15 of our models. And we’ll make it available on the all-new 2009 Venza when it goes on sale this fall.

We’d like to go on record here as saying that we do not advocate talking on the phone while driving. In fact, we flat think it’s a bad idea. But people do it. And now, with more states enacting laws that prohibit driving while talking on handheld cell phones, the Bluetooth hands-free connection provides an easy wireless solution. The technology is built into optional Toyota onboard DVD navigation and JBL audio systems.

Prius, the Unifier

What with the formation of the European Union, Europeans generally seem to have found a great number of things upon which to agree. And now there’s something else upon which they can agree.

According to a recent survey by a well-known organization, British, French and German drivers all adore the Prius – so much so that the Prius was the car that drivers from those three countries were most satisfied with.

And why wouldn’t they be? Fuel these days costs from $8 to $9 per gallon across much of Europe, and, for a time in recent weeks, it was as high as $14 per gallon in Britain. This was thanks, apparently, to a strike by the truckers who supply gas stations.

So when the Prius comes along with its EPA rating of 48/city, 45/highway and 46/combined, as listed on the EPA’s fuel-economy site, and with that same site listing the actual highway mpg figure submitted by Prius drivers as high as 56 mpg, naturally that’s bound to unify British, French and German drivers in automotive satisfaction.

Actually, we’re not terribly surprised that drivers in Europe would love their Priuses. Drivers here in the U.S. certainly do, so why wouldn’t everybody? Whether gas is $4 per gallon or $14 per gallon, having the keys to a Prius is a pretty good thing.

- Jon F. Thompson, Editor, Open Road