I would love to hear all other auto manufacturers response to the same question - "Specifically, then, what is YOUR COMPANY doing to alleviate global warming?"

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Pretty funny that autobloggreen wouldn't mention (in the reader's digest version) that he tried to duck the question about whether global warming exists anbd if so, whether vehicles contribute to it.


Let me break this jack ace down a little bit, quotes are from the linked to article for those too lazy to click the link...


"Toyota Motor Corp. President Katsuaki Watanabe heads a company that believes in solving little problems before they become big ones."

As we'll see later, they really look early on to solve problems.



"And Watanabe sees plenty to worry about."

You mean, he isn't ready to predict 75+ years of U.S. #1 marketshare like GM has? Interesting. But all kinds of people chiming in on autoblog(green) are so confident that Toyota is the best and will have no problem dominating the future in all markets. You think maybe they are so confident and sure because none of their comments mean a single thing toward reality? Nah.


"Even in North America, where we have many areas of success, there are many sources of concern."

Sources of concern? No, there isn't. Not in North America. Just ask any one of 50 autoblog writers and commenters. Oh, he is just being humble, yah, because he is a humber guy: http://www.autoblog.com/2006/01/12/general-motors-is-in-trouble-says-toyota-chairman



"For example, at our new plant in Texas, which I recently visited for our line-off ceremony for the new Tundra"

Makes it sound like he only ever went over there for the publicity shots. Wow, you mean he isn't some hands on Japanese exec that makes sure all is perfect from top to bottom and visits all factories all like several times a year? So he is as far away from the assemblers as possible most of the time. I just thought these guys were so different and made sure things were perfect personally. At least that is the kind of import fanboy beliefs.



"When I was in Texas, I found that they are struggling to organize the production line so that they can secure the quality and also the plant's volume."

So the Japanese managers did whip the Americans hard enough to be Japanese enough to not have problems at the new factory I guess. With that Toyota system they can produce anything anywhere with no problems. He is just so humble, telling us such fibs to be humble the real perfection going on in the new Toyota factory (none of it could be true from what I heard about the Shit on a Shingle Toyota production system.)



"But as you know, in this world, no one is perfect."

Except for you Watanabe San.



"Thanks to our customers, we're very happy because our sales have been much stronger than we had originally expected."

Yes, you're damned right. Thanks to your customers for being lemmings. What happened to the unhumble Watanabe that ripped GM a new ace? Come on, tell us all the truth. Thanks to his great decision making and superior Japanese engineering they make vehicles 500 times better than anything GM has ever made.



"But top management cannot assume strong growth will continue forever. It has to consider the potential risks also."

You mean, GM couldn't have expected to continue growing for 100 years straight until they had 110% of the market (at least) and all this talk by the import fanboys of GM losing share is actually a *natural* decline considering their marketshare was so huge? Yeah, your right (the thoughts of the import fanboy reading this), he didn't mention decline so he means they will peak at whatever percent of the market and just hold on to that until the earth no longer exists. (That way GM still looks like they are just so bad instead of just dealing with something inevitable).



"As you said, we already have capacity increases under way at Canada and SIA, on top of Texas and Mexico."

No, no my friend. Mr. Watanabe, ask any Toyota/Toyohonda fan, there are no Toyota factories in Canada and my gosh, there are definitely none in, gulp, Mexico. You don't understand. At least 100 times a month we are *told* by your supporters that Toyotas and Hondas are made in the U.S. (all is the implication of course) and all GMs and Fords are made in Mexico and Canada. I see, you got confused for a second with your product and GM/Ford product. I understand completely.



"But of course, we have recognized that we have to prepare ourselves for beyond that. So we have just started a study as to what move has to be made next.

Yes, yes, of course. All import fanboys tell us how you (the Japanese companies in general) look 10+ years ahead. Good thing in (just about 2007) you are *starting* to (study) think about beyond 2008. No, you are't too late, you are right on time. I wouldn't expect GM or Ford to think about 2008 until at least 2009, just ask any import fanboy. I guess in that sense they are looking ahead.



"We have made our best efforts in North America to become good corporate citizens. That has been a really important backbone of our philosophy there. That means not only local production, but we have been very actively engaged in philanthropic activities. We have to work even harder in those activities so that we will be regarded as a true corporate citizen in those communities where we are."

Translation: We assemble vehicles in American and North America in general so that we can get around trade barriers, not have to pay union wages and worry about *having* to keep union workers busy contractually like we do back home, and play to the many American's desire to buy something with some U.S. workers involved. Later I'll tell you how the hybrid components assembled in the U.S. are always going to be from Japan and never made by Americans. Furthermore, we need to do so much much donating in America since word is out that we made record profits rivaling some oil companies. It is actually quite sad how much little we donate compared to say, the state tax incentives we get in America. But I will change that as long as we have profits that are many times what the American companies make and while they are so far in debt and are not able to spend as much as us in general.



"That's not yet decided. We could do either greenfield or brownfield. With a greenfield site, we don't have any legacy, and we can start everything from scratch. In terms of brownfield sites, we have the experience of the NUMMI project 20 years ago, and now we're going to use the SIA plant. So we have some experience with a brownfield."

Nice to see so much undecidedness, are you sure this isn't an American exec with a Watanabe mask on? This sounds so un-Japanese to not know much about the very close future. So is he stating that Toyota has no greenfield experience and their experience with brownfields is from a 50/50 GM venture and a Subaru plant? So they have no experience doing a greefield or brownfield totally on their own. And here I thought they would have all the experience in the world with such things.



"NUMMI has had very few parts makers around it. But as they increased volume to 400,000, they have maybe reached a critical mass which enabled suppliers to come closer and produce locally. For example, companies like Aisin Seiki.
I think this is a situation that can make production more viable and profitable."

Translation: Do you know how hard it is to get factories with almost all illegal aliens going in the Midwest? That is why we are moving suppliers to California. The American companies we use in California have illegals there where wages can be tiny while still allowing us to up our Made in U.S.A. content and it also allows us to use more Japanese companies as well, like our friends Aisin Seiki, who prefer the hop over to California instead of dealing with Midwesterners.



"Have (General Motors CEO) Rick Wagoner and you talked about a possible change in the equity relationship at NUMMI -- specifically, the possibility of Toyota buying out GM's stake in NUMMI?"

Watanabe answer: blah blah blah
Translation: Are you out of your round eye mind? That is our *only* union shop in America, do you think we want to have full ownership of that situation? You are dumber than you look to ask that question.



"Toyota worries that it is stretched thin in opening plants. Do you need to be hiring more people at the manufacturing headquarters across the Ohio River from Cincinnati to support your expansions?

We might have to think about that."

Translation: No we haven't thought about that, thanks for the idea. We'll see how that pans out and no, you won't see a penny of our billions in profit if it turns out to be a good idea.



"We might have to think about that in the future. But so far, I haven't been told of any plans for a headcount increase."

Yet another I don't know / we'll think about it. These are simple questions about production. Things we've been told are what the Japanese strategically plan out much in advance.



"However, it's not just because we have more plants. Instead, the driver for this enhancement is that we want to localize r&d, production engineering and production preparation functions."

Translation: Japan is a small country, we have put many to work really can't fit many jobs over there and add the fact that we are making record profits by going to areas of the U.S. where they are afraid to go against us and unionize and by getting around import taxes and did I mention that the states are crazy enough to give us money to build there (I say crazy only because our Japanese gov't would never give gaijin anything near what the Americans give to us).



"Will you launch a Tundra diesel or a Tundra hybrid?

We're studying that. There are many technical options: diesel, hybrid or even bio-ethanol. We need more time to decide."

Another indecision? WTF? Most import fanboy already knows the answer. Diesels. Need 'em here and now. From tiny death traps to big trucks. They see, so I know Toyota must be all over it. They'll have 50 diesel hybrid Tundras by the years end.



"In 2007 in North America, it will be something like 300,000. We don't have a forecast yet for 2008."

What? You're one of two companies (Toyota & Honda) that "saw" the light for hybrids years before the other guys now you can't tell us a predicted hybrid number just 1 year (not even since 2008 model year starts sooner)? Come on, you goes know your market and didn't get into hybrids because your gov't helped flip the bill in research and the U.S. gov't didn't in essence flip some bill by tax credits. That's not why you did it. You knew 10 years in advance the number of hybrids you would sell, you're just not telling us because when you are spot on we will all see how perfect you guys really are.



"In Europe, the new Corolla hatchback is called the Auris. Will you be using the Auris name in North America, too?

I haven't heard anything. Since the Corolla is scheduled for 2008 in North America, we don't have an official decision yet."

Um, what is that, like "I don't know" number 58? Sure, not all decisions should come from him but is this guy out partying when the decisions are made? He sounds less into knowing what is going on at Toyota than a bear in the woods.



"How soon will we see Isuzu's diesel engines in Toyota vehicles? Will it happen first in Europe or North America?

We haven't decided that yet."

According to the import fanboys Toyota wasn't just buying stuff that GM was selling just because it was GM and they wanted to do things like GM. No, they thought out every detail of their purchases *completely* for the next 10 years before they even bought shares. Yeah, right.




"We're now developing the third generation of hybrid systems. Because of that, we do not have a clear sense of the lineup yet."

No clear sense of the line up yet? The Japanese are always thinking 10 years ahead (ask any import fanboy). I'm starting to think there is some perceptions that are incorrect here. Maybe I should not listen to import fanboys so much.



"Hybrid models are being built outside of Japan in the United States and China. But the hybrid system itself will always be produced here in Japan."

Translation: GM *will* have hybrids assembled in America and so we had to for PR purposes assemble Japanese parts in the U.S. so we can do more (American) flag waving on American TV commercials. The Europeans are not going to do much of that and if they do it will only be in expensive cars anyway so we decided to just assembled in Japan and U.S. Now don't go thinking that GM/Ford actually created jobs in the past and still continue to push us to do so til this day, 'cause that just isn't true. No, we like localizing somethings and not others based on an equation (that we hope to have ready in an undecided future date).



"Is human activity a significant cause of global warming?

'Human activity' covers a lot of ground.

But vehicles' emissions -- CO2, NOx and hydrocarbons, as well as particulate matter from diesel engines -- those are real. "


Translation: Oh, S, the dude asked me that question. I'm either a tree hugger if I say "yes" or I piss off all the Prii owners... what am I thinking, those guys love us too much because they can parade around like they drive water powered machines... Um, let me see... Things do come out of the exhaust pipe. That's my answer, yeah, that's the ticket.



"One of the most important missions as the top management of this company, for me, is to "zero-nize" those downsides of automobiles."

I.E. attack America economically as we did militarily with our Mitsubishi Zeros.



"Since I became president of this company, I have always said this is my dream car: It will make the ambient air cleaner the more you drive. If you drive that dream car, it will cause no harm to people and have no accidents.
I used to say we should aim for a car that could be driven across North America on one tank of fuel. Now I say one tank to go around the whole world.
I also said that the more you drive the dream car, the healthier you will become."

That's so beautiful I think I'm gonna tear up. Everything a school boy would write in a junior high essay. How about some specifics on the fuel (as he mentions one tank of fuel). He must not think all electric is the future as Lexus showed in it's car of the future. He probably knows better about the future than the Lexus engineers though (yeah, right).



"The first thing we have to do is to try to find out globally what is happening and to find the root cause of those things. Of course, I believe the automobile has made some contribution to this global-warming phenomenon. But right now what's lacking is this global-level, root-cause analysis. Once you have this root-cause analysis, you will be able to find a solution and break down the targeted solutions to each responsible party."

That's kinda a George Bush response. You need to find the cause and use strategery to fix it.



"Right now, everything is a bit blurred."

OMG, if a GM exec stated that when asked about Global Warming then you might as well go to Nader or Moore's house for breakfast (I don't know what that means but that S just wouldn't fly).



"I established a project team of engineers. I asked them to study the environmental issues including global warming. What is the real situation? What can we do, what should we do as an automotive industry? If you need more information, you can contact our executive vice president, Mr. Takimoto, who is the head of that project team."

Translation: I constructed this team because I wanted to know answers. They tried to report them to me and I told them go F'ing tell Takimoto San.



"This is just my personal feeling, because I am not an expert in these issues. But I think maybe it is the case that global warming is a scientific fact."

Translation: Oh, S. The dude didn't read the latest issue of Consumer Reports where they said we were so much more environmentally friendly than GM and Ford. That is the last time I pay them to right such things if I still have to answer questions like this from gaijin.


Good to see that gov't needs to do three things to combat Global Warming. Two of which are to do the analysis and come up with the strategy. How about taking just the profit on the exchange rate you made in 2005 and doing the analysis and coming up with a strategy. You made more the the U.S. gov't has spent on anything other than war. Why not give it a shot?



"I'm very concerned about China. Some reports say that the current Chinese (total fleet) of 30 million vehicles will rise to 380 million by 2030. If that happens, this is going to be a big challenge, not only for the environment but also for energy conservation and global safety. So we have to monitor their growth very carefully."

Translation: China is going to have one hell of a lot of cars sold there and they make sure their cars are sold there are Chinese made and with Chinese workers and parts as much as possible. This scares me. We aren't going to make all the money we do now. And, Oh, yeah, they will mess the environment up a little too.



"I think it's high time we pursue deep-sea (carbon dioxide) sequestration technology (a way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by injecting it into oceans)."

Translation: Us Japanese have been talking about how great it is that we have factories outside of Japan so much now because we have always liked a lot of sea food on our island nation and we want to put crap in oceans from our atmosphere. And we have more and more of the factories toward the Atlantic so it isn't poluting our Pacific. We'll figure a way for the American union to look bad in California for not putting emissions in the ocean, so I'm not worried about that. You know, we'll have them saying we can't meet the deadline for 25 years and so the Pacific will be the least poluted.


Nice to see that autobloggreen didn't focus on any of the extremely interesting "green" quotes from Watanabe in their summary. I.E. totally skipped over that he was trying to not answer the question at first and then stated it is all a blur.

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I love Toyota products but have had a nine year bad experience with trying to get a 1997 RAV4, bought new,seamless Toyota Dealership service record, repeated IAC valve failure problem addressed, replaced eight times in 48,000 miles. All Toyota has been asked to do is fix the problem or send me a letter indicating that my concerns about excessive maintenance and safety issues are unwarranted. Can anyone give me the address of Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota President, an address that would guarantee he would see the trials and tribulations of a thirty years loyal customer.

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I've been looking for Katsuaki Watanabe's email address as well, and I'm willing to share what I found on the internet. The address is katsuakiwatanabe@mail.toyota.co.jp
I haven't tried this email address as of yet, but will be trying to send an email in the next day or so related to an airbag issue on my 2006 Toyota Carolla. Good luck!

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