Behind Toyota's hybrid revolution ... SF Chronicle 4/24/2006

[Coastie for Truth]

Cross posted at

Satoshi Ogiso doesn't look or act like a brash automobile executive. With an ill-fitting suit and spiky hairdo, his hands flutter bashfully across his face as he talks of "difficulties," "challenges" and "problems." The 45-year-old engineer refuses to brag about his accomplishments. But as chief engineer of the hybrid Prius, Ogiso has helped Toyota revolutionize the auto industry.

By making huge long-term investments in gas-saving technologies that U.S. automakers pooh-poohed, Toyota has proved that corporate environmental consciousness can be wildly profitable.

"What has made this revolution possible is that Toyota is a company with a focus on technology, because we think innovation is the future of our company," Ogiso said in an interview. "So we cannot fall behind. We are trying very hard, and it is very difficult."

Ogiso's humility is typical of Toyota. Its world headquarters in Toyota City, a quiet industrial city 150 miles southwest of Tokyo, has a deceptively modest demeanor: The nondescript, 13-story building looks like it might house a midsize insurance firm in any American suburb.



Personal observation from the corner of Woodward Avenue and Maple Road in Birmingham MI --- Satoshi Ogiso would have been "RIFed" or "Surplused" out of GM, Ford, or DaimlerChrysler within three years of hire -- and would have ended up teaching Automotive Engineering 101 at

[Demeter]

1. Happy Consumers Drive Profits

and Ford, et al, are thinking it's healthy profits that bring in the sales.....the (Ass) Backwards Bean Counter effect.

And it's halthy sales that drive the stock market share prices, not vice versa,

which then drive the bonuses (or rather, that's the way it ought to be....)

But in this ass-backwards, topsy-turvy, I got mine, screw you world, nothing is as it should be.

Hence, nothing works. QED

[PurityOfEssence]

2. Post-Carter America is "Fuckyouistan"

One of the dark sides of the American character has always been the extreme selfishness that's the flip side of the stalwart cowboy hokum, but it wasn't glorified and exalted to the point of ultimate virtue until the Reagan years.

Immediate money is the only thing that matters besides fame.

Makes ya proud...