The Case for SUVs

Clearly, the car business has changed in the last six months, and one of those changes is that SUVs no longer are at the top of the lists of most car shoppers. They’ve been replaced by smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. And even the retreat of gas prices in the last few weeks seems not to have reversed that sea change.

That’s fine with us. We build SUVs, and we also build fuel-efficient cars. But here’s the deal: We’d argue that even our SUVs are fuel-efficient, within their own context and compared to like vehicles. And they often offer features not available in other types of vehicles.

Buyers are trending toward smaller cars, and that’s fine. Still, we were surprised to find a story on the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Web site providing reasons to purchase an SUV. We’ll paraphrase some of them quickly here, because we think they make sense.

Prius Battery Change is No Big Deal

You probably know that we’ve been selling our Prius hybrid here in the U.S. since 2001. So let’s do the mileage math: At an average of 15,000 miles per year for seven years, that suggests that these 2001 Priuses could have a bit more than 100,000 miles on them. Some of them probably have many fewer miles. But some of them undoubtedly have seen many more miles scroll past their odometers.

Which of course raises a question in which owners of these cars are deeply interested: What happens when the battery packs that are fundamental elements of the Prius package no longer can store electrical power?

Make no mistake, batteries do, in non-technical terms, wear out. What happens is that they no longer can maintain the electrical charge that is essential to their ability to supply electrical power. But having changed countless batteries in flashlights and other devices, you already know that, right?

It is a fact that some of our first-generation Priuses are still going strong with more than 200,000 miles on their original batteries. A couple of cars doing taxi service in Victoria, British Columbia reportedly have seen 300,000 miles and in one case, 400,000 miles on the original batteries with what’s described as "very few maintenance issues."

On Coming Back for More

One good way to measure the kind of job we’re doing as a manufacturer of efficient, high-value cars and trucks is to look at the percentage of customers who, having bought or leased one of our vehicles, buy or lease another.

When this happens it’s called "retaining customers," and the numbers measuring this phenomenon are known as "customer-retention numbers."

We must be doing something right because the 2008 numbers show that Toyota and Lexus continue to generate customer-retention numbers far above the industry average.

Toyota, Lexus Honored for Design Excellence

The Kelley Blue Book used to be where you looked if you wanted to see how much your car might be worth. KBB, as it’s called, still provides that information, but these days, it also provides much more through its web site, kbb.com.

Recently, for example, it announced findings from its Brand Watch study of consumers’ second-quarter automobile brand perceptions and the factors that affect car-buyers’ purchase decisions.

What the KBB folks found should come as no surprise: Vehicle styling plays a significant role in a buyer’s decision-making process. More significantly, they also found that consumers have design favorites.

Enterprise Boosts Portland Hybrid Rentals

You know about Portland, right? It’s Oregon’s largest city, situated on the southern bank of the mighty Columbia River. It’s the site of the annual Rose Festival and Rose Cup auto races. Lewis and Clark floated past it late in 1805 during their groundbreaking Voyage of Discovery.

It can be argued, in fact, that Lewis and Clark set a tone for environmental awareness that marks Portland to this day – the city is widely recognized as one of the "greenest" in the country.

So perhaps it should be no surprise that Enterprise, the car-rental company, recently converted two of its locations there to feature only hybrid vehicles, a fact brought to our attention by a local TV station. We’re pointing this out because our Prius is one of the hybrid models that will be available at these two locations – one of them downtown and the other at Portland International Airport.

Lexus Engine Makes "10-Best" List

One of the most fascinating side effects of the general excellence now a part of almost every car or light truck currently in production is that we can basically forget about their engines. Today’s engines are incredibly long-lived and require very little maintenance or upkeep. Indeed, tune-ups are things of the past.

In short, today’s engines just run and run, to the point where we pretty much take them for granted, assuming, as many do, that an engine is an engine is an engine.

Ah, but that’s just not so, as astute observers of the business know. Into that column marked "astute observers," write the name, "Ward’s."

Ward’sAuto.com is an auto-industry Web site that every year selects 10 engines that its editors judge to be the year’s best offerings.

Toyota and Resale Value

There are lots of ways to calculate a vehicle’s value. Its utility and its fuel economy probably are good indicators, and reliability and long-term customer-satisfaction numbers also probably are good indicators. Fortunately, Toyota fares well in those departments.

But a critically important way to measure overall worth is a vehicle’s resale value.

Obviously, a vehicle that loses but a small amount of its initial value with the passage of time and usage is a better investment than a vehicle that loses a larger amount of that initial value.

So we’re pleased to report that Toyota vehicles figure prominently in Kelley Blue Book’s 2009 best-resale value list, according to a story posted recently on one of the Los Angeles Times’ blogs.

Eight Toyotas Make "Top Safety Pick" List

There was a time when some manufacturers of motor vehicles believed that old saw that claimed, "Safety doesn’t sell." That may, or may not, have been true back in the bad old days before crushable zones, airbags and the like. We know for sure that it isn’t true today.

Safety is important to buyers, as it very well should be; certainly it’s something that all manufacturers work hard on. So we’re interested in the results of the 2009 round of testing by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). That testing named eight Toyota models as "Top Safety Picks."

The IIHS’s "Top Safety Pick" designation recognizes vehicles that do the best job in controlled laboratory testing of protecting drivers and passengers in front, side, and rear crashes. Additionally, to be named a "Top Safety Pick," vehicles must be equipped with electronic stability control, which can help the driver in adverse driving situations, thereby reducing the risk of traffic accidents.

Sign of the Times: Indy Cops Go Hybrid

It looks like police detectives in Indianapolis soon will be piloting some unconventional rides.

That’s because the City of Indianapolis recently bought 85 Camry Hybrids for them to use, according to a report in the Indianapolis Star.

The city’s reasoning for the purchase was simple, according to Mayor Greg Ballard. He said he expected the use of the Camry Hybrids to bring reductions in fuel costs and air pollution.

Economy, Reliability: Best of Both Worlds

Here’s a notion with which, we suspect, no one will wish to contend: Inexpensive is good.

Good gas mileage and fuel efficiency, derivatives of inexpensive, are good because vehicles that possess those attributes are less expensive to operate than those that don’t possess them.

Reliability is good, because its opposite – unreliability – means the factors that cause the unreliability must be dealt with. That costs time and money.

Money, you will have noticed, is on everybody’s minds these days.