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Toyota not so green

080427_toyota.jpgMost of us now understand that pollution from cars causes global warming. So, we also know that driving cleaner cars — like Toyota’s low-emission, 48 miles-per-gallon (mpg) Prius hybrid — means less global warming pollution. Unfortunately, the overall truth about Toyota is, well, inconvenient. The carbon footprint of Toyota’s overall car fleet remains dinosaur-esque, and their lobbyists are working to kill national legislation that would force them to stop selling their gas guzzlers by 2020. Toyota’s opposition to the proposed 35 mpg standard has left many of its loyal, green-minded customers feeling surprised and betrayed: “To hear all of a sudden that they’re lobbying against the higher [gas mileage] standards makes me nuts. What are they thinking?” asked Mark Gamba, a Prius-owning Oregonian. Meanwhile, competitors like Nissan support the new standards. Toyota is actively lobbying Congress to defeat the proposed measure to increase fuel-efficiency standards to 35 mpg by 2020. The standard would cut more than 200 million metric tons of global warming pollution in 2020 alone. Toyota’s DC lobbying team says its engineers “don’t know how” to meet the standard.[2] Could these be the same engineers that already make cars that get 48 mpg? And the same company that already meets Japan’s more rigorous standards? Toyota’s technological know-how seems not to be the main roadblock here. Image source: stopcorporateabuse.org. > Continue.

News selected by Covalence | Country: USA | Company: Toyota, Nissan | Source: Corporate Accountability International

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