The argument over whether or not Toyota Motor Corporation received Japanese government help to develop hybrid batteries rumbled on again on Thursday as Chrysler issued a statement denying that vice chairman and president Jim Press (a former long-serving Toyota US executive) had spoken negatively of Toyota in an interview with Business Week.
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“In [the] interview, he referenced the close cooperation between the Japanese government and Japanese industry. He said the Japanese government strongly supported R&D investment in battery development, and the Prius and other Japanese models benefited from that investment in industry,” Chrysler asserted.
“He cited this as an example of cooperation between government and industry working together on public policy issues. He went on to say that he would like to see similar cooperation in the United States in order to find technological improvements that help give US companies a competitive advantage.”
The original Business Week report had on Wednesday prompted Toyota to deny it had received any funding from the Japanese government to develop its hit Prius petrol-electric hybrid car, according to the Associated Press (AP).
The automaker rejected the 24 March report that quoted Press as saying, “The Japanese government paid for 100% of the development of the battery and hybrid system that went into the Toyota Prius.”
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By GlobalDataAP noted that Press worked 37 years at Toyota, including the years of research for the Prius, which first went on sale in Japan in 1997 and the US in 2000. He left Toyota for Chrysler last September.
Toyota told AP the report was untrue.
“I can say 100% that Toyota received absolutely no support – no money, no grants – from the Japanese government for the development of the Prius,” Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco told the Associated Press.
The news agency noted that Japanese companies have a reputation for having close relations with the government, and some private-sector projects receive public money, especially those for clean energy, but there have been no previous high-profile reports alleging that Toyota’s hybrid project received public money.
