Whenever Toyota makes a move, the world takes notice. Japan’s #1 automaker (which looks poised to be the world’s largest) has been a leader on hybrid development, but has been a little behind the curve when it comes to diesel development. It especially lost face when archrival Honda boasted it would have clean diesel models on sale in the U.S. within 3 years. Toyota’s only response at the time was, “We’re working on it.”
Although Toyota owns Hino, a maker of medium and heavy-duty trucks, the company’s experience with smaller-displacement diesels is limited. So it figured its time (and money) might be best spent partnering with a company whose primary expertise is compression-ignition engines. Naturally, Toyota chose Isuzu, one of the oldest carmakers in Japan and with a history of developing and manufacturing diesel engines of more than 60 years.
Isuzu’s expertise with diesels is so renowned that, when General Motors was developing its next-generation ¾ and 1-ton diesel engine for its full-size pickups, it chose Isuzu to do the bulk of the research and development work. Today, we know that engine as the Duramax.
With the General spinning off its stake in Isuzu early this year, Toyota saw it as the perfect opportunity to purchase 5.6 percent of the company, as well as tap its deep well of expertise with diesel engines. Granted, it looks like the automaker got some ground to catch up on with diesel development compared to Honda, Volkswagen, and DaimlerChrysler, but with its seemingly bottomless financial resources and steely determination, don’t count Toyota out from bringing clean diesels to the U.S. market right behind everyone else. Perhaps even the first production passenger-car diesel hybrid? If a 100-mpg Prius seemed a little far-fetched about a year ago, with the addition of a possible turbodiesel, it’s a very likely reality.
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