Does Toyota Really Spend One Million Dollars Per Hour On Safety?

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Like GM’s infamous “payback” commercial, this Toyota ad walks right up to the point of a big lie, allowing the viewer to believe something while they’re actually being told something subtly different. Toyota never says “we spend a million dollars every hour on safety-related technology,” but they sure make you want to believe it. In reality, the “million dollars every hour” represents Toyota’s global R&D budget, some undisclosed portion of which is spent on safety-related technology. Toyota’s explanation of this intentionally confusing claim, after the jump.

Toyota gave the following response to the NY Times‘ request for clarification

Sona Iliffe-Moon, a Toyota spokeswoman, declined to estimate the proportion devoted specifically to safety.

“The $1 million figure represents Toyota’s R&D spending on new technology and safety, much of it allocated to quality and safety features,” she said. “A specific amount would be nearly impossible to estimate as nearly every component of our vehicles is designed with safety in mind, including steering, brakes, seats, ergonomics, weight, even where the radio is placed.

“Passive and active safety components are integrated throughout our vehicles,” she said, “most of which are invisible to the driver.”

Maybe instead of touting its R&D spend (and implying that little of it goes to non-safety related projects like, I don’t know, hybrid technology), Toyota should start figuring out how it can improve response time when things do go wrong. The latest example of a delayed defect response at Toyota involves the latest engine recall. According to BusinessWeek, the valve spring defect in question was first reported as early as 2007.


Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Domestic Hearse Domestic Hearse on Jul 06, 2010

    365 days a year. Times 24 hours per day. Equals 8,760 hours per year. Times 1 million dollars.... I call b***hit, Iliffe-Moon-san. But brilliant, since most Americans no longer have basic math skills nor can they think critically.

    • L'avventura L'avventura on Jul 06, 2010

      Which is $8.76B Which is where Toyota's R&D budget is, its especially bloated in terms of today's currency rate since Toyota R&D budget in calculated in yen, and the dollar and euro are weak. Even back in 2005 Toyota spent 770 billion yen in R&D, which is 8.75B in today's exchange rate. Its even larger now. Also, this $1 million per hour claim is fairly old: http://www.h2carblog.com/?p=548 Now, R&D and safety may be a questionable connection, but I'm sure Toyota is going to spend billions in settlements and lawyers fees this year, not to mention recall costs and everything in between. With all those calculated it should easily be over $8.46B, but I'm sure Toyota doesn't want to brag about those costs...

  • TomH TomH on Jul 06, 2010

    Meh, "investing" at ~$1,350/car isn't a lot of money when you take into account the array of safety technologies in modern vehicles. Once you consider all of the things that are reportable in NHTSA's world (and their global counterparts) it's pretty easy to get there. The car biz deals in mega-numbers that are literally and figuratively "hard to imagine."

  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
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