More Prius controversy - Auto blog - Rick Haglund - MLive.com

More Prius controversy - Auto blog - Rick Haglund - MLive.com by Rick Haglund April 03, 2008 13:50PM

Toyota Motor Corp.’s competitors have long complained that the Japanese’s automaker’s groundbreaking Prius hybrid car has not been profitable. Several years ago, before General Motors Corp. got religion on hybrids, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz dismissed the Prius as a marketing expense designed to place a “green” halo over Toyota. But Toyota has maintained the Prius is profitable.

The controversy has reared up again, though. Chrysler LLC Vice Chairman Jim Press, who spent 37 years with Toyota, told Business Week magazine that the Japanese government fronted the powertrain development costs of the Prius.

“The Japanese government paid for 100 percent of the development of the battery and hybrid system that went into the Toyota Prius,” Press was quoted as saying in Business Week’s March 24 issue.

Toyota on Wednesday denied getting any development money from the Japanese government. The brouhaha prompted Chrysler to issue this statement late yesterday:

There have been several news reports today concerning statements made by Chrysler LLC Vice Chairman and President Jim Press on battery development for hybrid vehicles. First of all, Press was not speaking negatively of Toyota.

In a recent interview, he referenced the close cooperation between the Japanese government and Japanese industry. He said the Japanese government strongly supported R & D (research and development) investment in battery development, and the Prius and other Japanese models benefited from that investment in industry.

He cited this as an example of cooperation between government and industry working together on public policy issues. He went on to say that he would like to see similar cooperation in the United States in order to find technological improvements that help give U.S. companies a competitive advantage.

Doesn’t exactly clear things up, does it?

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