auto-accountability

June 2, 2023

CA & NY – Ahead of Toyota’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) later this month, two of the nation’s largest pension systems – California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and the Office of the New York City Comptroller – just voted against the re-election of Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda and in support of a resolution urging Toyota to improve disclosure of its lobbying on climate change. 

May 8, 2023

NATIONWIDE - Today, Vox reported on the Sierra Club’s new report “Rev Up Electric Vehicles: A Nationwide Study of the Electric Vehicle Shopping Experience,” which shows that the U.S. auto industry is largely failing to meet consumer demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and automakers are greenwashing their EV commitments.

May 3, 2023

WASHINGTON, DC - After years of lobbying against tougher emissions standards and federal incentives to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles (EVs), Toyota has allegedly told U.S. officials – behind closed doors and with no official record – that it is fully committed to going all-electric.

March 14, 2023

Cummins just announced a new electrification brand “Accelera” and a project with Blue Bird that plans to put 1,000 electric school buses on the road in the next 12 to 18 months. Cummins is still a part of the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, a trade association that has fought for years to delay progress on the transition to electric trucks. The EMA urged the EPA to adopt weak federal NOx standards during the agency’s May 2022 public hearing, though it claims to support strong standards.

March 7, 2023

A diverse coalition of leading climate, environment, and human rights organizations announced today the launch of an auto supply chain industry Leaderboard and global campaign calling on automakers to capitalize on the unprecedented opportunity offered by the electric vehicle (EV) transition to clean up their supply chains. The Leaderboard analyzes the publicly available official reporting of 18 of the leading automotive manufacturers in the world, ranking their efforts to eliminate emissions, environmental harms, and human rights violations from their supply chains while supporting workers’ rights. 

January 20, 2023

Washington D.C. – Yesterday, on the first day of the Washington D.C. Auto Show, auto accountability experts from health, faith and environmental advocacy groups held a press conference in front of the Convention Center calling on automakers to produce more, clean electric vehicles. Advocates condemned car companies like Toyota for prioritizing profit over our collective health and safety. 

October 24, 2022

Washington, DC – Today, Reuters reported that Toyota “is considering a reboot of its electric-car strategy to better compete in a booming market.” 

August 24, 2022

SACRAMENTO, CA – Yesterday, Toyota announced its support for the state of California’s authority to set vehicle emissions standards under the Clean Air Act. During the Trump administration, Toyota and other automakers attacked this authority and sided with Trump’s rollback of key climate and clean air protections.

January 26, 2022

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last night, Sierra Club hosted a video projection on the front of Walter E. Washington Convention Center during the Washington, DC Auto Show. The projection calls out Toyota’s greenwashing of their dirty vehicle fleet. The projection can be viewed here.  

January 4, 2022

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Reuters reported that Toyota outsold General Motors in 2021 in the United States. GM has been the national leader in annual sales since 1931.

December 3, 2021

WASHINGTON, DC – This week, Toyota committed to sell only electric vehicles by 2035 in Europe, aligning the automaker with an EU pledge adopted in July. Yet the automaker still doesn’t manufacture and sell any battery electric vehicles in the US, the automaker’s biggest market.

November 8, 2021

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Public Citizen, Moms Clean Air Force, and League of Conservation Voters launched Pollutamotor.com, a website and accompanying digital ads asserting that Toyota, which still doesn’t sell any battery-electric cars in the U.S. and is committed to manufacturing outdated hybrids and gas-powered vehicles, risks being stranded by the electric vehicle transition.