Toyota is financing climate deniers in the US

Toyota, the world’s number one car manufacturer, has been revealed as the most prominent auto industry funder of climate deniers in the US Congress, according to a report released last week by Public Citizen. Meanwhile, it is spending a lot of money and influence lobbying against EV regulations.

Public Citizen’s report, “Driving Denial: How Toyota’s Unholy Alliance with Climate Deniers Threatens Climate Progress,” analyzes political donations from US auto industry PACs (political action committees) over the last three election cycles, and shows that not only is Toyota the largest funder of climate denial, but that Toyota’s funding of climate denial is increasing, while others are decreasing.

Notably, the report only covered company-linked automaker PACs, specifically Toyota, Ford, and GM, and donations to Congressional candidates.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk did set up his own PAC, and his contributions to anti-EV and climate-denying candidates vastly outpaced all of the PACs above combined, which is quite a feat for the CEO of an EV manufacturer.

Public Citizen analyzed public records of political donations and past statements by US Congressmembers. It expanded its definition of ‘climate denier’ from previous reports, this time including members who “used other rhetorical tactics like climate doom (saying there is nothing that can be done), portraying climate activism as alarmism, and who downplayed the need to act to address climate change.”

It found 169 candidates, all Republicans, who had worked to deny scientific truths about climate change over the last three election cycles. Toyota donated money to 143 of those 169 candidates, totaling $810,000.

Toyota also ramped up its funding to Republicans and cut funding to Democrats, helping to cement a Republican trifecta. While in the previous two cycles, Toyota donated relatively evenly to both parties, this cycle, it contributed over 60% to Republicans.

In contrast, this cycle, GM gave nearly 43%, and Ford gave almost 46% of its individual PAC contributions to Republicans. Toyota contributed nearly twice as much as GM and almost nine times as much as Ford to GOP congressional candidates.

Supporting/influencing the new administration

Shortly after the November election, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the leading auto industry lobby in the US, called on the incoming Trump administration to preserve the $7,500 EV tax credits enshrined in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

The credit has been key to growing EV adoption in the US. In 2023, the first full year of the credit, EV sales shot up by 46%. The latest data from Kelley Blue Book shows EV sales reached record highs in Q3 of 2024, attributing much of this growth to “incentives and discounts.”

The National Bureau of Economic Research has estimated that if the Trump administration and Congress eliminate the credit, EV sales would drop by 27%.

Shortly after AAI called on Trump to preserve the credit, Toyota publicly broke with the group, calling the Trump team to water down the credit so its hybrids could qualify.

Global Influence

According to InfluenceMap, an independent think tank producing data-driven analysis on how business and finance impact the climate debate, Toyota is the third worst company in the world, after oil companies Chevron and Exxon, for its anti-climate lobbying.

InfluenceMap notes in its May 2024 scorecard that Toyota had a busy year. The company once again received a D, the lowest score among all automakers, and was fueling opposition to climate regulations worldwide.

The scorecard highlights Toyota’s lobbying efforts against emissions standards in the US and Australia and against EV mandates in Canada and the United Kingdom, as well as its success in weakening emissions standards in the US and fuel efficiency standards in Australia.

Home turf

Logically, Toyota is mighty in Japan. It is by far the nation’s largest company, with revenue more than twice and a market cap nearly twice that of the closest runner-up.

No corporation gives more than Toyota to the LDP, the leading liberal party that has ruled Japan for most of the past 70 years. The only group to donate more in 2023 was JAMA, the Japanese auto industry trade group.

In the summer of 2022, Japan was set to phase out the sale of polluting combustion engine vehicles by 2035, just like the European Union decided.

At the last minute, Akio Toyoda, then Toyota’s CEO, met Akira Amari, a key official from Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and intervened to ensure that the government did not entirely ban fossil-fueled cars.

In an LDP policy meeting the next day, Amari shared Toyoda’s message with his colleagues: “I spoke with Chairman Toyoda yesterday, and he said that JAMA cannot endorse a government that rejects hybrids. If we don’t make that clear, JAMA will push back with all its might,” Amari said, according to notes and audio of the meeting. After Toyoda’s message, officials changed the document to eliminate its zero-emission goal.

For several reasons, EVs are scarce in Japan, and hybrids are in full flow. However, one can’t underestimate the influence a big player like Toyota has on the country’s mobility and transport policies.

New Era

Toyota has high hopes that the Trump administration will come into office. During the Biden administration, lobbying from Toyota and others forced the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to weaken an ambitious plan to limit vehicle emissions.

Toyota has also fought to undermine states’ climate standards. Under the Clean Air Act, states have been allowed to set emissions standards since the 1970s. However, in 2019, President Trump sought to revoke that right as part of an effort to roll back Obama-era rules.

While Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, and BMW all sided with California, Toyota sued the state. Unlike GM, which initially also sided with the Trump administration before quickly reversing itself, Toyota spent three years fighting California before finally acknowledging the state’s long-held right to regulate its own emissions.

Changing world

Isn’t Toyota right when it says that the energy transition will be slower than forecasted and that, as a world player, it wants to be able to provide all its customers with the right vehicles? Of course, it has arguments here.

However, Toyota has deceptively marketed its gas-powered hybrids as EVs and postponed its investments in electric vehicles. In the decade between 2013 and 2022, the most recent available year, Toyota spent $17.2 billion on marketing.

Much of its advertising budget has gone toward campaigns that use terms like ‘electrified’ and ‘beyond zero’ to mislead consumers into believing that its gasoline-powered hybrids are electric. When PHEVs became critical, it invented the word ‘self-charging’ for its regular hybrids (HEVs) to counterattack.

Toyota heir and long-time CEO Akiro Toyoda is well-known for disliking EVs. Under Toyoda’s guidance, the automaker has fallen far behind its rivals in electric vehicles.

In 2023, fewer than 1% of the 11.2 million vehicles that Toyota sold were fully electric, far behind the global average of 11.1%. Lately, the alternative hydrogen path to zero-emission seems to have also weakened.

Toyota is still a huge company and the number one in the automotive market. Still, it is trailing its competitors on EVs and is at risk of falling behind even further as Chinese competitors make low-priced EVs to sell around the globe.

Even Toyota’s Japanese competitor, Honda, has recognized the threat. In announcing plans in December 2024 to merge with Nissan, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe cited technological trends of electrification and autonomous driving. “The rise of Chinese automakers and new players has changed the car industry quite a lot… We have to build up capabilities to fight with them by 2030; otherwise, we’ll be beaten,” he stated.