As the Ford Motor Co this week scaled back expectations for its first hybrid-powered vehicle and backpedaled on a pledge to improve the fuel economy of its sport utility vehicles, Toyota was introducing its latest Prius, which will get about 55 miles per gallon, 5.10 liters per 100km) and be the first midsize vehicle with hybrid technology.
For environmentalists, the contrasting developments reinforced the sense that only foreign carmakers care about curbing America's swelling appetite for oil.
"The Japanese are where you go if you want good technology, and Detroit is where you go if you don't," said Daniel Becker, the top global warming expert at the Sierra Club.
But the picture is also more complicated -- and bleak, from the perspective of reducing oil consumption. Toyota, Honda and Nissan are flooding the American market with SUVs of all sizes; Toyota and Nissan are redoubling efforts to take on the last largely unchallenged stronghold of Detroit, the pickup truck. And sales of new model SUVs from Japan far outnumber gas-sipping hybrids, which supplement the internal combustion engine with electric power.
"They're getting all this great green press over the Prius," said John DeCicco, a senior analyst with Environmental Defense, "but their product strategy has moved into trucks big time."
As Toyota was promoting the Prius this week at the press preview of the New York International Auto Show, in another corner, Nissan rolled out the Pathfinder Armada, its first full-size SUV, which is due later in the year. The Armada is as heavy as the Chevrolet Suburban, equipped with up to 14 cup holders and can tow 4 tonnes.
Pickup mania
With a new crop of vehicles named Sequoia, Titan, Tundra and Armada -- can Godzilla be far behind? -- Toyota and Nissan are making a statement that they will build light trucks as big as Detroit's. Honda is also increasing production, but not of the largest, pickup-like models.
The influx of competition is forcing US automakers to lower their own prices on SUVs and pickups and improve their own vehicles to stay competitive.
Since 1999, Toyota, Nissan and Honda have introduced 10 new pickup trucks and SUVs, compared with three small hybrid cars from Toyota and Honda; last year, the Japanese Big Three sold about 471,000 of these 10 vehicles in the US, while Toyota and Honda sold fewer than 35,000 hybrids, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank.
And that does not count huge sales of existing SUVs like the RX-300 from Toyota's Lexus division or the Nissan Pathfinder, to name a few.
DeCicco said that Asian automakers generally performed better, segment by segment, in the environmental ratings that he compiles, but by no means across the board.
A recent report by Environmental Defense found that GM's automotive fleet produced the most climate-warming carbon in the 1990s -- a function of its rank as the largest automaker. But Toyota's carbon emissions grew the fastest, by 72 percent, compared with 33 percent for the market, a function of a product mix that is approaching the truck-heavy tilt of the Big Three.
"In addition to addressing environmental concerns, we have to balance what customers want, and many of them want SUVs," said Donald V. Esmond, group vice president and general manager of the Toyota Division in the US. Toyota executives have said they plan to sell 300,000 hybrids a year worldwide by the middle of the decade.
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