Toyota and the National Parks

Seems to us that there are few things more tightly woven into the fabric of America than strapping the kids into the car and heading out to enjoy a few days and nights camping in one of our national parks.

Those parks are rightly seen as part of the national heritage, part of every American’s birthright. They represent, for all of us, adventure, renewal and the inexorable allure of nature at its very best.

But they’re something else, as well. Our parks also represent a unique opportunity to provide training for the next generation of environmental leaders. With that in mind, in a program known as Leadership in Environmental Awareness for the Future, or LEAF, Toyota recently announced a $5 million donation that will help support environmental leadership and educational programs at five national parks around the country. We’ll also donate 23 vehicles for use in the parks.

VolunTouring

Whether it’s hospital candy stripers, PTA, scout leaders or part-time rural firemen, there are few activities more American than volunteerism. And when you mix the American penchant for volunteerism with environmental awareness, what you get is – well, one thing you get is the VolunTour.

The VolunTour is a trip promoting volunteerism on public lands. It’s the result of cooperation between Toyota and Take Pride in America, a program initiated in 1985 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

VolunTour kicked off two weeks ago in Texas, and from there it headed through the Southeastern states and up the coast toward Washington, D.C., with at least nine volunteer events along the way before its finale this week at the site of the historic old C&O Canal in Washington, D.C. The C&O was once a part of an extensive canal network on the East Coast in the era before extensive roadroad service, and was a lifeline between communities along the Potomac River. These days, it’s part of the National Park system.

The Meaning of "All"

TODOS is a Spanish word that when means "all." That works for us, because just as Toyota offers vehicles for nearly every category of buyer and use, we also believe in the concept of inclusiveness as a social value.

But TODOS also stands for Toyota Organization for the Development of LatinOS, an internal organization that provides development opportunities, community-service volunteer events, fellowship and other opportunities for growth for Toyota’s Latino Associates.

One of those opportunities for service and growth is this program’s flagship, a program we’ve been involved with at Carson High School, a campus local to us, since 2002.

Our thought is that if students at Carson High want to go to college, we should help them make that happen.

Toyota and the Audubon Society

You all know the National Audubon Society, right? Founded by George B. Grinnell in the late 1800s, it’s an environmental organization named for the great wildlife painter John James Audubon (1785-1851).

Grinnell chose to name his organization after Audubon as it proceeded with its earliest projects – the protection of birds and their habitats. Today, the name Audubon remains synonymous with birds and bird conservation.

And now, fueled by a $20 million grant from Toyota, the Audubon Society has launched TogetherGreen, a nationwide program designed to fund conservation projects, train environmental leaders and offer volunteer opportunities designed to benefit the environment.

A Decade of Learning and Teaching

We’re taking just a quick moment to quietly celebrate a milestone that gives us a tremendous amount of satisfaction.

You see, this year marks the 10th anniversary of our Toyota International Teacher Program. If you’ve been a frequent visitor to Open Road, you may remember reading about our program as we prepared to send a group of teachers to the Galapagos  Islands last year.

So far, about 500 teachers have participated in the program. We will send a small group of select U.S. teachers to the Galapagos Islands and to Costa Rica again this year to expand their international knowledge, exchange environmental conservation ideas and become involved in culturally diverse activities. Our goal is to inspire the creative teaching of these themes in the schools and communities where our teachers work and live.

A New Season of Driving Expectations

Here is a driving truth we might all be wise to ponder.

The truth is – and there’s no way to whitewash this - an inordinate number of young people die, are badly injured, or badly injure others, in auto accidents.

And no matter how bad you may think the problem is, it’s probably worse than you think. In fact, one out of five 16-year-old drivers has an accident during the first year of driving. And although teens make up just 6.6% of licensed drivers nationally, they account for more than 15% of all auto-related fatalities. Indeed, 16-year-olds have the highest crash rate of any age. They are more than twice as likely to die in a car crash than the average driver is.

We’re a company that builds and sells cars and trucks. We don’t want people, young or not-so-young, dying or maiming themselves – not in our vehicles, and not in anyone else’s, either.

So a while back now, we began looking for a way to help minimize the potential for the kinds of trouble young, untrained and inexperienced drivers can get themselves into.

Virtual Scions, Real Fun

You know about Gaia Online, right? No? Well, you at least know about anime, right? No?

No worries, I didn’t know about either of these phenomenons either.

So stick with me for a minute and I’ll provide definitions, and then we’ll get to why Gaia Online  – and other sites like it - are important to Scion.

"Anime" refers to a style of animation used in Japan. With a look and feel all its own, it’s incredibly popular, especially with young people.

Gaia Online is a virtual community done in the anime style. It is among the largest forums on the Internet, and reputedly gets more than a million posts daily and nearly three million unique users each month.

The Fires of Southern California

The scene Sunday evening was surreal.  Less than one hour after returning to my home (my less than one year-old new house) in the city of Irvine, CA in Orange County, I found myself perched atop a 10-foot block and stucco wall, balancing my body against the howling Santa Ana winds, taking home video of what would become a tragedy of incalculable proportions in Southern California.

I was literally mesmerized by the ferocity of the flames racing down Hicks Canyon—flames that effortlessly jumped across the six-lane 241 toll way less than one mile from the front door of my house.  And they didn’t stop.

Instead, the cool dry winds blowing at times up to 80 MPH from the east created dramatic scenes as flames were whipped up into 20 foot walls of unstoppable fire coursing down the hillside, vaporizing scrub brush and charring countless numbers of 100-year old giant Eucalyptus trees and beautiful avocado trees.  Cars traveling along Portola Parkway stopped to witness history in the making as the fire began to burn the outskirts of the city, and it wasn’t until I heard the unmistakable words, “You should evacuate NOW” coming from the PA system of an Orange County Fire Authority fire truck traveling through my neighborhood that I realized I needed to stop filming and start moving—for my life.

On Monday morning, I returned to my secured neighborhood with my dog to discover to my relief that my house was unscathed by the flames. They had come within a quarter mile of my house.

Of course, the nation now knows of the scope of the calamity in California as the fire that threatened my life and home as well as the 22 other fires currently burning this afternoon in Southern California continue to create utter destruction and horror—incinerating over 1500 homes, killing at last count more than a dozen of our citizens and displacing a half million people who can only hope and pray that their homes, their memories will be spared.

Southern California is home turf for Toyota Motor Sales, USA.  In fact, we’ll be celebrating our 50th anniversary here in less than one week.  So it should come as no surprise to any readers of Open Road that we grieve for the losses suffered by our friends, associates, dealers, customers and neighbors as this natural disaster continues to unfold.

To assist in the recovery and rebuilding from the wildfire crisis in Southern California, Toyota today donated $2 million to the American Red Cross.  In addition, the company is supplying fork lift trucks and pallet jacks from Toyota Material Handling USA to be used to unload and distribute relief supplies.  Many Toyota associates, in the midst of the company’s annual Toyota Charitable Contributions Campaign, are making fire relief donations to the Red Cross and getting matching donations from Toyota.  Associates directly impacted by the fires are able to secure financial grants by taking advantage of the company’s Toyota Associate Emergency Relief Program.  Our area Toyota, Scion and Lexus dealers are providing support and relief on an individual basis.

While we know that there is no way to replace the most tragic of losses suffered within our Southern California communities or erase the indelible nightmares suffered by so many, it is our hope that donation of cash and equipment and other support will help speed the recovery efforts.  We also applaud and thank the thousands of firefighters and other relief and emergency personnel who are working so tirelessly to protect our property and lives.

(Photos Courtesy Los Angeles Times)

~ Contributed by Bruce C. Ertmann, Corporate Communications

Toyota’s New Texas Truck Factory: A New Plant for a New Truck

We’re pretty sure that most of you know by now that Toyota has built a new factory just outside San Antonio in which to assemble the Tundra half-ton pickup.

But what you may not know is just how interesting this factory is. So check this out:

This new plant is built on the 2,000-acre site of the former Walsh-Small Ranch, said to be the oldest cattle ranch in Texas, one that was active even before Texas statehood in 1845.

The new plant, called Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas, Inc., or TMMTX, was built to create up to 150,000 new Tundras each year with its crew of 2,000 team members. It augments an existing plant in Indiana, in operation since 1999, which also assembles Tundras.

San Antonio was chosen because the area around the city has plenty of flat, open ground, and because it also has a confluence of transportation facilities – both rail and highway. We need to be able to transport in raw materials, as well as transport out the finished Tundras.

Expectations for Life

It’s time for some serious talk here on Open Road about the safety of our children, so let's begin with the basics:

A: Toyota makes and sells motor vehicles, and all sorts of people drive them. Among those people are teenagers.

B: One out of five 16-year-old drivers has an accident during the first year of driving.

C: Although teens make up only 6.6% of licensed drivers nationally, they account for nearly 14% of all auto-related fatalities. Indeed, 16-year-olds have the highest crash rate of any age. They are three times more likely to die in a car crash than the average driver.

D: In 2005, 5,699 people between the ages of 16 and 20 were killed in motor vehicle crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

E: Motor vehicle crashes continue to be the leading cause of death for American teenagers.

Toyota and National Public Lands Day

It’s our guess that a considerable number of Americans probably are unaware that something special happens late in September every year, usually on the last Saturday of the month – this year, it’s September 29.

It’s National Public Lands Day, a day when thousands of volunteers fan out across the country to help refurbish and restore the country’s public lands. These are the places Americans use for outdoor recreation, education and just plain enjoyment.

They encompass national parks, national monuments, wildlife refuges, forests, grasslands, marine sanctuaries, lakes and reservoirs. These are resources that are managed by government agencies, but belong to, and are enjoyed by, all of us.

Big Two Toyota: Is It a Dealership or a Theme Park? You Make the Call

I want to go to Big Two Toyota. And I’m not even in the market for a car.

Admittedly, I do need to get out more. But when I talked on the phone recently with Wally Henkel, general manager of the big new Toyota dealership in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, Ariz.,
I couldn’t help but long to experience it firsthand. Wally doesn’t run a retail car outlet. He heads up a theme park—or so it seems.

Toyota's Open Road

When I think of the open road, my thoughts turn to pleasant memories of weekend trips in my Toyota to destinations unknown, moving forward in a spirited manner with a sense of freedom, and the opportunity to meet new people and engage with them—listening to their stories and developing new friendships.

It was in this sense not long ago that I had the opportunity to commune in a most unusual way with a community group of some of Toyota's most loyal and passionate owners, members of the Prius enthusiast forum know as PriusChat. PriusChat is a great example of how Toyota is beginning to utilize nontraditional consumer-based and consumer generated media to reach out directly to owners and consumers and to shape and protect the Toyota brand image.

With over 13,000 active Prius members and who knows how many behind the discussion threads, it is the perfect spot to engage with our customers and those that we hope will become part of the Toyota family. A young man named Danny from Columbia, SC, founded the PriusChat internet forum nearly four years ago and has watched it grow dramatically as Toyota Prius and hybrid sales in general took off. But, Danny was missing one important ingredient, a Prius!

You see the guy was so frustrated with the very limited means for Toyota and Prius fans to get together and chat about their favorite cars, he built his own online community chat rooms and eventually established the Prius-specific enthusiast forum, PriusChat. Spent all his money on that and couldn't afford to buy a new car! But not any more!

With help from Grossinger Toyota/Scion North in the Chicago area, Danny and his fiancée and a small army of PriusChat members, including me, gathered at the dealership on a sweltering Chicago afternoon to launch Danny on his Prius ownership experience in PriusChat style, meaning plenty of Chicago dogs, burgers and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, members matching faces to screen names and an incredible display of Prius vehicles on site with visual displays, informative information and real live PriusChat members (owners of the cars!) handling questions from observers quite expertly.

So whatever we want to call this rapidly expanding consumer-generated media, it's all about the conversation along the open road, it's about listening to those who think your products rock as well as those who think they stink.  The venue isn't perfect, but it is instantaneous--and it does demand an uncompromised level of transparency and authenticity.  What a perfect place to unveil Toyota's newest corporate communications tool, the Toyota Open Road Blog.

And just like Danny and his PriusChat community, we hope that this blog will serve as our "Go and See" mechanism on the web as we open up the conversation to consumers, our customers, journalists, car aficionados and just about anyone else who longs for the exhilaration of traveling along the open road.

-Contributed by Bruce C. Ertmann, TMS Corporate Communications