According to their marketing strategy and according to our lemming-like perceptions, Toyota has long been the leader in environmental sustainability.
Is it true? NOPE.
Being a sustainable business has nothing to do with what you "say" you do - it has nothing to do with your marketing strategy. Being a sustainable business - both in longevity and in positive social and environmental impact - is 100% dependant on your daily, conscious decisions.
According to Toyota, "Green. That's how we'd like the world to be. As an environmental leader, Toyota does more than meet industry standards - we seek to raise them. Along with our partners, we're working toward a future where a wide range of innovative vehicle and fuel technologies and infrastructures converge to create an economically vibrant, mobile society in harmony with the environment."
Under this new definition, is Toyota an environmental leader? Again, NOPE.
Why? Toyota makes the same bad decision 100 times and gets caught 3 times. Those are good odds as far as they're concerned.
Toyota has recalled their truck lines every year since 1987. They started recalling the 2004-2010 Toyota Tacoma back in late September for the same accelerator problem that their cars have. They've recalled massive quantities of Toyota trucks over the last 23 years (YES, 23 years) for:
- Faulty headlights made from "parts sold for use as aftermarket equipment."
- Defective trailer hitches (I'm sorry, but that's scarry!)
- Deffective fuel system & gasoline delivery hoses which would cause the trucks to explode in a side-impact accident
- Faulty driver-side seatbelts that don't work
- Randomly exploding airbags which sent people to the hospital and caused multiple accidents
- Incorrect load carrying capacity for the tire selection and rims in 2009 and 2010 cars and trucks because vehicles were being overloaded and crashing
The list goes on and on . . . . . .
Interesting to note that most of the truck recalls since 1987 were due to NOT meeting the US Federal Guidelines for Safety. There have also been multiple recalls on different Toyota the vehicles made the same year. Toyota knew about their accelerator problems - they've been installing them in the Toyota Tundra and the Toyota Tacoma since the end of 1995. And yet . . . what? Let's keep putting those faulty accelerator problems in all of our cars too and hope nobody notices?
Another unsustainable decision? Toyota recalled HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Tacoma trucks from 1995-2000 because they skipped the steps of protecting the body of the vehicle from excessive corrosion. Oops. They promised to fix the problem on the assembly line. Three years later, Toyota had to recall HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Tundras made after 2000 for the SAME problem.
Here's a question for you: where are all of these faulty parts coming from? Third-world countries all over the world. And, once removed, where are all of these recalled vehicles with their faulty parts going? Our landfills.
Toyota should be paying tariffs, taxes, and international fines for dumping waste in American territory.
All of this on top of the little-discussed fact that we buy hybrid cars thinking that they're good for the environment when in fact they're made with nickel-lead-lithium metal hydride batteries - a corrosive carcinogenic - that goes into our landfills, into our water supply, our food supply and our children.
Toyota is very clever. They don't really have to do the right thing for the environment.
They just have to tell us that they do, and we'll nod and smile and go out and buy their products.
When we see a Toyota on the road, we should say "Oh look at that good citizen!" We could (justifiably) say "Look at that poor yoke who didn't do their homework and got duped!"
Why aren't Toyota owners more angry? Why aren't they revolting? They thought they were doing the right thing - buying from the right company - and now they have to kill off all of our fish, dump lead into our food supply, and send their loved ones to the hospital with neurological damage just to get rid of their purchase.
But when our own government defends Toyota saying that "it is unfortunate and unfair that Toyota has fallen victim to aggressive and questionable news coverage" (would that be a blog post like this one?) I guess we really don't have to fix the core problem, really educate consumers on companies that practice what they preach, or hold Toyota liable for their marketing antics that continuously prove to be untrue.