Toyota's Race to the Top

First, they introduce a hybrid automobile, the Prius, that breaks sales records for alternative-fueled vehicles and -- with the help of Hollywood’s A-list -- ushers in a new era of fuel-efficient cars. Then, they open a half-dozen manufacturing plants in North America (including a hybrid factory in Kentucky), with promises of more to come.

Now, the company’s newly minted president, Katsuaki Watanabe, in his first news conference, held on Monday, hitched his company’s future growth to fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles, saying, “Our main mission as a company is to contribute to a better society” and that "We need to do much more in this field than we have been."

Doesn’t he know that automobile companies are supposed to be the evil empire for most environmentalists?

Seriously, something strange and wonderful seems to be going on here. A major automobile company -- the world’s second-largest, well on its way to besting General Motors, the ailing auto maker that currently (and temporarily) holds the number-one spot -- is embracing sustainability and environmental and safety issues as a core operating principle.

True, there’s some crafty strategy going on here. According to the June 28 Wall Street Journal, Toyota recognizes that the more hybrids it sells in the U.S. and, as a result, the higher its companywide average fuel economy, the more highly profitable trucks and SUVs it will be able to sell. And Toyota said in an annual report filed with U.S. regulators on Friday that tougher U.S. fuel economy standards could hurt its bottom line.

But it’s not all that cynical. At his news conference, Watanabe committed his company to “green technology” and promised to keep pushing Toyota engineers until they come up with a technology that one day would allow a car to “cross the U.S. continent on one full tank of gas.”

Assuming that gas tank holds 20 gallons of fuel, we’re talking about your basic 150-mile-per-gallon vehicle. Which is not, entirely, out of bounds. Since the late 1990s, Amory Lovins has been talking about a “hypercar” that gets 200 miles per gallon. And the New York Times reported in April on how hobbyists have created plug-in Priuses with tricked-up batteries that claim to get 180 mpg.

So, the cross-country tank of fuel may be within our grasp.

Toyota’s prominence as the green car company also shows the value of long-term vision -- at least by automotive standards. For years, the company has been pondering the role of environmental friendliness and fuel-efficiency as a key to its growth and success over the long haul. For example, in early 2000, speaking at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Toyota’s then president, Fujio Cho, put it bluntly: "Environmentally friendly cars will soon cease to be an option, they will become a necessity."

Today, with $60-per-barrel oil and climate change creating a two-pronged threat to Americans’ beloved mobility, and China ramping up its car buying, that sentiment seems like a no-brainer. But for a car company back then, it was nothing short of visionary.