All the things Toyota is doing as mentioned above are well and good, but what worries me is that making cars more efficient may simply serve as an enabler for the world to have more cars. Then, we'll be back to where we started from because even if we use less fuel per vehicle-mile, we'll also end up carrying out more vehicle-miles (or, vehicle-kilometers if you prefer).

In addition, how is Toyota or anyone else for that matter, going to address the issue of politicians squeezing the auto industry harder and harder on both fuel economy AND safety? Here in the US for example, there are laws pending that would require doubling roof crush strength to deal with the problem of rollover accidents.

What Toyota ought to be doing in my opinion, besides all the good things they mention above, is to develop public transit buses that young people will consider cool to ride on. If they do, btw, I prefer not to hear a peep from anybody here in the US about buying American. I see no point complaining the world is coming to an end from global warming, and then also crying in one's champaigne about American jobs being lost if transit agencies were to buy first-rate buses from Japan or elsewhere.

It is interesting that Toyota now enter the battery R&D business directly by setting up their own lab. It could very well be that the single most important technology to stay competitive as a vehicle manufacturer in the coming decades is to have the right battery/capacitator technology. It is perhaps smart to take all the patents on this technology and then outsource production to others. Anyway it is great that more large companies spend serious money to develop better electric storage technology. It will importantly increase the chance that breakthrough batteries are invented and mass produced. We need it to solve our compounding environment problems and get off fossil fuels.

Being profitable gives Tyota a leg up on the competition, especially here in the US, where, once again, the "Big Three" misread the tea leaves. No pun intended.
There are a few bright spots on the horizon for GM and Ford, but do they have the cash to sustain themselves over the long haul? As for Chrysler.....?

Gambling Doesn’t Pay

Because their biggest and most profitable customer has no energy policy, Toyota is covering all the bases. They are anticipating the development of a policy by the next administration by getting off the mark in many areas, so they can hit the ground running in the upcoming few years.

It must be a confusing environment for the car company strategists in this transition period.

Toyota doesn’t gamble. A conservative approach is to do everything and not bet the ranch on any one narrow product line development area. (i.e. GM – Volt)

I have a regular hybrid (Camry) and I'm thinking that, even with the small battery I have, it would help my mileage if I could plug that in to "top up" and maintain maximum charge when I get up in the morning.

Not much on diesel... What a shame.

@HarveyD:

Given that not only are cars sucking dry the world's petroleum resources (not to mention the possibility of global warming being caused by cars) but also killing hundreds of thousands of people a year, I'd like to play devil's advocate and argue that perhaps NO NATION has a "right" to a car for every family.

Let's look at American society: In many suburban life style situations, young people are barely this side of not even being able to go to the bathroom without access to a car, or the presence of an adult with a car, to drive them to the out-house. As a result, parents are letting their adolescent sons and daughters drive when they're no more than 17, with tragic results in many cases. I wouldn't be surprized if this were happening in China and India too.

If China, India, Brazil, etc., want to make it their national policy to have a car for every family, then I suppose there's not much we Americans can do about it. But: If we encourage exports of American-built cars to create jobs for our auto workers, what's the difference between that and encouraging exportation of cigarettes to provide jobs for tobacco farmers?

Its good that Toyota is vertically integrating.

But under the novel anti-Trust rules that the Democrats have created in the 1990s, the automakers could never follow in Toyota' footsteps.

The UAW has forced Detroit auto makers to shed their old vertical integration. But Delphi and Visiteon are grandfathered, but are impossible to create today, under the litigious anti-Trust laws of today.

Under the extension to anti-Trust that Democrat prosecution of Microsoft produced, American firms cannot vertically integrate, for example, buying or creating their own suppliers such as a becoming a battery maker,as toyota, Nissan and Honda are doing. Microsoft precedents would end up suing GM or Ford if they tried, to absorb a battery maker, just as Microsoft was prosecuted for trying to purchase/merge Intuit, or prosecuted for producing OS extensions in functionality such as Internet Explorer. It is easy to see the IE for example is puposely constrained in functionality so as to not run afoul of anti-trust.

We the consumers get screwed, as a consequence. One way si that is it a lot like buying an auto in 1915. See one firm for an engien, another for a chasis another for a starter motor, another for a battery, another for a windsheild et cetera. it really used ot b ethat way.

Think if whatyou have to do with a PC, today.

Tiny Apple with a small market share was exempted,and the professional integration of all components makes Macs expensive; limited in choice of haredware or peripherals. Bur at least all the pieces work together, and the owner is not forced to be a system integrator, himself. This was the advance that Henry Ford ansd Alfred Sloan brough to auto buyers inthe 1919s and 1920s.

Democrat's make it illegal to do today.
Another example of having way too much government, already.

@Alex Kovnat

The Punch Bowl

The global punch bowl is draining; the icing on the party cake is melting. Will we struggle against reality: unending oil war? Or will we sink slowly, quietly into the soft warm malaise of poverty with the joys of Christmas past a fading memory: no shiny new cars; vacations gone, no new toys from china, and no more wine from France. Economics is a harsh mistress exacting a painful and enduring price for our pass sins of gluttony and excess. The contours of our future are now uncertain but frugality will rebound and eventually dominate our lives.

If you like this post also see “Christmas Past”.

Then why is the 2010 Prius to be more powerful ? The 1.8L engine and 120Hp traction motor. Who called for more power ? And didn't they say they would reduce the weight of HSD parts by half ? The vehicle is said to be "not significantly heavier" than the previous generation. These future plans for development are OK but the reality is that someone at Toyota doesn't seem to be with the president's program here.
T2

5% of the world population (North America) uses ¼ of the worlds energy, and drives ½ of the cars.
The rest of the world thinks North Americans are greedy but wants to begin living at those same standards. I think they should and can improve their standards and have access to energy and transportation.

Obviously the rest of the world will not drive on gas like north America or Diesel like Europe, because there simply is not enough of these fuels for such an increased usage.
The top options are Hydrogen made from Electricity, or Electricity. Batteries are more efficient but still lack range, a defect that is rapidly being overcame.
The other hurdle is in producing electricity. More, the rest of the world needs to make the bulk of it's electricity from non-oil sources, preferably clean renewable ones, and not coal. This is already occurring.

Wind power is the fastest growing world wide energy supply type with more wind energy added by percentage last year than from any other source. Wind energy capacity is now cheaper to install than coal, and takes no fuel and little maintenance. Wind Turbine manufacturers are doubling and tripling production and are still sold out for the year.

Politicians can never get too far from this reality, and neither can business.
We notice that Toyota has a finger in each technology pie. Hidden in the bottom of other efforts is the technology bombshell “TMC also plans to accelerate development of small electric vehicles for mass production.”

We don't need to be geniuses to realize that wind power electricity and small electric vehicles in mass production will change everyone to electric cars and fast. People want to buy a car they can refuel, not one they know has a fuel shortage.

@Joseph:

Visited some freinds in Dallas. Parked at the park and ride and took the light rail to the stadium. When we got back to the park n ride 3hrs later, the car was gone, never seen again.

That's why railed mass transit is so good: your train will never be stolen.

I couldn't let this one pass :-)