Green car funds arrive after the fact?

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Toyota Australia's Corporate Affairs office was in virtual lockdown today as the company did its best to water down statements of senior execs from this week's Camry Hybrid announcement.
 
The comments, made by both Toyota Australia President and CEO Max Yasuda and Senior Executive Director Sales and Marketing, David Buttner, clearly indicate that Toyota's decision to assemble Camry Hybrids in Australia was done and dusted before any taxpayer funds were committed to the scheme.
 
Speaking at a special automotive media press conference post Victorian Premier John Brumby's announcement on Tuesday, both Buttner and Yasuda confirmed no government funding was considered in green-lighting the Camry Hybrid assembly announcement.
 
Buttner told the Carsales Network that Toyota's decision, though recent, was a "business decision" and in no way conditional upon government funds. He also stressed that the decision was not contingent on government fleet purchases of the car.
 
"The decision to build the hybrid [Camry] here is Australia is very much a business decision. Suffice it to say, naturally, it's important to have a legislative environment which is conducive to assisting and supporting automotive manufacturing in this country [however]," Buttner said, referring in the main to ongoing tariff discussions.
 
When we pushed the point and asked whether Toyota would seek a portion of the Green Car Innovation Fund monies to support the program, Buttner suggested the company might "put its hand up and indicate our interest" at some time in the future when the full details surrounding the fund were made clear.
 
"The $500m fund, of which all of the details aren't fully clear yet, is available to promote the adoption of alternative fuel technologies here in Australia. So if that's the purpose of the fund then naturally you'd suspect that at some point in time we'd be putting our hands up and indicating our interest," Buttner said.
 
Adding his weight to the future 'tense' of any funding request, Toyota Australia boss, Yasuda added: "The green car fund does not start until 2011 -- so this decision has nothing to do with the green car fund."
 
Further to this, replying to the Carsales Network's question on whether discussions had taken place to pull forward any of this funding, Yasuda said simply (and clearly): "No."
 
While this doesn't directly fly in the face of statements by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Kim Carr in Tokyo this week, it comes pretty damn close. It certainly seems to make the pollies' commitment of $35m of "green car funding" to the 'fait accompli' project generous, to say the least.
 
Could it be the federal and Victorian state governments are muscling in on Toyota's "business decision" in an effort to benefit from the green 'feel good' factor?
 
When contacted by the Carsales Network, Toyota's corporate affairs staff pointedly referred our questions to Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Carr's respective offices.
 
From other senior Toyota communications staff we received firm "no comment" when we asked whether the company had been blindsided by the Australian Government's 'bequest' of $35m to the project.
 
The fact global Toyota chief Katsuaki Watanabe's not sure where the company's going to spend the Aussie taxpayers dollars only reinforces the point. [Ed: on Toyota's current rate of R&D spending $35m equates to around 30 hours of lab time!] 
 
While not bad news for the Australian automotive industry, the hybrid Camry decision is not all that 'good' news either.
 
It is essentially an incremental addition of an assembly operation that, by Toyota Australia's own Executive Vice President Manufacturing Mike Harvie's admission, will have minimal impact on the Altona production facility… Nor require substantial additional investment.
 
Though both Prime Minister Rudd and Premier Brumby have waxed lyrical about the effect the enterprise will have on the local industry, there will be little if any hybrid technology transfer. Australia is not going into the hybrid building business -- the bolting-in of Toyota's Synergy Hybrid Drive system into the Camry, is essentially no different than Holden bolting in North American-built V8s. The wiring harness (which could also be imported) will just be a tad more complicated.
 
One observer joked today the only new locally-produced parts required to build the Camry Hybrid will be the bolts and brackets holding the fully-imported drivetrain (the whole petrol-electric caboodle) into the car.
 
Toyota took a corporate decision more than a decade ago to champion hybrid drivetrains. By the end of the next decade it seeks to offer a hybrid alternative in every segment into which it sells.
 
Divesting hybrid assembly to its plants around the world is a key step along the way for this strategy.
 
The $35m of taxpayers monies Kevin07's just tipped into Toyota's pockets unbidden could have been better spent in so many ways...

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