The Open Road Poll

We’ve got a question for you. Actually, we’ve got several questions.

We plan to ask them because while you probably know a great deal about us, who we are, what we do, what we build and what we stand for, we know very little about you and what you’re looking for when you visit Open Road, and that bugs us.

It’s important that we try to learn a few of the things we don’t know, because without you, this blog is the sound of one hand clapping. And without knowing a bit about who you are and what you’re hoping to find when you point your browsers our way, we can’t do the best possible job of supplying what you’re looking for.

So we’d ask for this quick favor. Take a look at the question below and give us your answer. There will be just a couple more questions like this one over the course of the next few weeks, and the answers to those questions will help us do a better job. Thank you.

- Jon F. Thompson, Editor, Open Road

Online Surveys & Market Research

Things Every Driver Should Know How to Do

It seems clear that folks today are nowhere near as involved with their cars as drivers once were.

And that’s OK. You don’t need to be involved with your car to the point of having a relationship with it. In point of fact, cars today – almost all of them, ours and those of other manufacturers – are so well developed that they need very little attention.

But this apparent disconnect between drivers and their vehicles has, it seems to me, some unfortunate potential consequences. For as we’ve become less involved with our cars and less interested in them, we’ve apparently forgotten that there are some things about them that we really need to know, and know how to do.

Here’s a quick list of some of the things that are essential for any driver to know – things you can learn about simply by leafing through your car’s owner’s manual:

Brochure Style

One of the things I like to do in my free time is look through old magazines. I’m not much interested in the articles and pictures. What I am interested in is the advertisements and the writing style used in those old ads.

I get the same enjoyment from looking at Toyota brochures from the 1950s and 1960s. They can be pretty entertaining.

Here’s a good example from a 1959 Toyopet Crown brochure - and as always on Open Road, if you'd like a larger view, just click on the picture:

Notice the couple – man and woman sooo ‘50s stereotypical - looking at the car. The text on the left strikes me as very funny. It would never see the light of day in any Toyota brochure today.

It says, "Look, Andy, the Toyopet’s really a BIG car. Plenty of room for even my pheasant-feather hat…and your legs!"

This probably is not the most politically correct way to describe a car.

European Dream: Will the Land of $8-per-Gallon Gas Foretell our Future?

My bride and I recently returned from our honeymoon in France. While there, we sipped champagne, choked down garlic-butter-laden snails and poured a significant share of our travel budget into the tank of our diesel-powered subcompact rental car.

At each fuel stop, the numbers on the LED readout zipped by like a Las Vegas slot machine offloading its jackpot. Only, in this case, we got to play the role of banker.

Do the math, at your peril. One liter of diesel was running in the neighborhood of 1.5 Euros. At the current unfavorable exchange rate, that translates into $2.25. There’s 3.75 liters per gallon. So, in American terms, that’s $8.43 to cover 30something miles of pavement—or roughly 28-30 cents [edit] per mile.

Toyota Opens Up About July Sales

Today, Toyota Motor Sales (Toyota, Scion and Lexus vehicles) reported July sales. A total of 197,424 vehicles were sold in July, down 18.7 percent on a daily-selling-rate basis and 11.9 percent on a volume basis from last July. The breakdown for July: 175,242 for the Toyota Division (Toyota and Scion), a decrease of 17.9 percent from last July, and 22,182 for the Lexus Division—a decline of 24.6 percent from the year-ago month.

Following the announcement, I spoke with Toyota Division Group Vice President Bob Carter and Lexus Group Vice President and General Manager Mark Templin. Hear what they have to say about the recent sales results, as well as what the future holds for Toyota and Lexus, in this edition of the “On the Open Road” podcast (6:21).

—Sacha Terrill, Corporate Communications, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. 

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.

Toyota Talks Sales

This morning, Toyota Motor Sales (Toyota, Scion and Lexus vehicles) reported first-half and June sales.

The results?

A total of 1,240,086 vehicles were sold in the first half and 193,234 in June—a decrease of 11.5 percent from last June. The breakdown for June: 172,981 for the Toyota Division (Toyota and Scion), down 10.3 percent from last June, and 20,253 for the Lexus Division, down 21.1 percent from the year-ago month.

Following the announcement, I caught up with TMS President Jim Lentz and Lexus Group Vice President and General Manager Mark Templin. Listen to what they have to say about the challenges facing the auto industry, as well as at Toyota and Lexus, in the first episode of the “On the Open Road” podcast (5:34).

—Sacha Terrill, Corporate Communications, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A.