Pressing matters - Toyota wasn’t alone in receiving government assistance: Consumer Reports Cars Blog

Pressing matters - Toyota wasn’t alone in receiving government assistance: Consumer Reports Cars Blog

The automotive press was abuzz earlier this month as corporations flung around statements related to the development of hybrid vehicles, suggesting Toyota may have received an unfair advantage by receiving government funding for research and development. However, Toyota isn’t the only automaker to receive government assistance. More than a decade ago, American tax dollars supported an auto industry initiative to develop a marked advance focused on developing a marketable, 80-mpg family car.

This conflict flared up recently after Business Week magazine published a quote from Jim Press, former president of Toyota’s U.S. division: “The Japanese government paid for 100 percent of the development of the battery and hybrid system that went into the Toyota Prius.” In September 2007, Press left Toyota to become Chrysler’s vice chairman and president.

While Press’s statement may not sound earth shaking, the news rocked Detroit. The impression left is that Toyota received an unfair advantage (i.e., government support), when some captains of the American car industry have long justified their delay, both on and off the record, in developing hybrids by claiming that such complex vehicles can’t make money due to huge development costs. They may be right. Even if the Japanese government did help pay for the development of the Prius, that doesn’t necessarily make it profitable. (Jim Press is shown here at  the 2001 New York International Auto Show with first-generation Prius prepped for the transit authority.)

Read the entire article at Pressing matters - Toyota wasn’t alone in receiving government assistance: Consumer Reports Cars Blog.