Techdirt. Stories about "toyota"

DailyDirt: Who Drives Best -- Men, Women... Or Robots?

Joyce Hung — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:00:00 PST

If you believe in gender stereotypes, then you probably think that men are better drivers than women. However, auto insurance companies are inclined to believe that women are actually safer drivers. It's a hotly debated topic, but it's safe to say that there are lots of bad drivers -- both men and women -- on the road. That's why we need robot cars. Here are a few links to some driving-related studies.

A New York City traffic study found that male drivers were responsible for 80% of car accidents in which pedestrians were severely injured or killed. Blame it on testosterone, which increases aggression and risk-taking. [url]
A University of Michigan analysis of 6.5 million car accidents in the U.S. between 1998-2007 found that female drivers were responsible for 68.1% of all crashes. Apparently, women have trouble navigating intersections, as they were most often hit on the driver's or passenger side while trying to turn left or right. [url]
A more recent UK study showed that women are actually better at parking than men, dispelling the myth that men have better spatial awareness than women. According to the professional driving instructor who created the study, men learn and perform better during driving lessons, but it's possible that women retain what they learn better than men. [url]
Let the car park itself. Many automakers, including Ford, Toyota, and BMW, are offering self-parking systems in their vehicles now. While they can guide cars into parking spaces with minimal driver involvement, they aren't always reliable. [url]
To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Court Says Woman Can Sue Toyota After Being Tricked Into 'Agreeing' To Be 'Stalked' In Ad Campaign Gone Really Wrong

Mike Masnick — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:22:24 PDT

Two years ago, we wrote about how Amber Duick was suing Toyota for their ridiculous ad campaign that allowed people to totally freak out their friends by entering some info about them, and then having that friend be fake "stalked" by someone creepy who would start emailing, texting and calling the person, pretending to be planning to come to their house to stay with them. It was a bad idea all around, done by an ad agency who made the idiotic decision that young men like to "punk" their friends. And, of course, to make it seem "legit," Toyota would trick the victim into "agreeing" by having something totally different sent to them (a personality test) from the friend, which has really broad terms of service.

Toyota sought to dismiss the case, by saying that Duick had agreed to these terms. However, as we predicted when the lawsuit was filed, that agreement isn't standing up in court. The court has rejected Toyota's argument, and is allowing Duick's lawsuit to go forward against Toyota and others associated with the campaign.

The question I'm still trying to answer is what sort of thought process leads anyone to think this kind of campaign is a good idea?

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DailyDirt: Beauty Is Only Pixel-Deep...

Michael Ho — Thu, 8 Sep 2011 17:00:00 PDT

We've pointed out Eguchi Aimi not too long ago -- she's the artificial member of the Japanese pop band AKB48. It looks like there can only be more computer-generated people on the way, so here are a few quick links on this uncanny trend.

Apparently, computer-generated eyes are also the windows to the soul... A study finds that one component of the Uncanny Valley is the look of the eyes. [url]
Would you buy a Toyota Corolla from Hatsune Miku? She's probably a bit more attractive than Mr. Opportunity, but her voice is not quite as easy on the ears. [url]
Max Headroom pitched Coca-Cola back in the 80s, so we've been living with artificial pitchmen for a few decades now. Maybe Max was a little more than "20 minutes into the future" back then, but he still didn't see the end of New Coke. [url]
To discover more interesting tech-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

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DailyDirt: Get Your Motor Running, Head Out On The Highway

Michael Ho — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:00:00 PDT

Changing the way people drive could actually save more resources than switching to exotic hybrid drivetrain technologies. But it's so much more convenient to speed along at 70mph than to try to coast as much as possible and maintain a steady 55mph. Here are some car projects that are trying to break speed/mileage records and maybe create more environmentally-friendly cars.

Faster than a speeding bullet, but less powerful than a locomotive... it's a rocket car. Driving at over a thousand miles per hour? Now that's podracing! [url]
An 11yo girl driving at 1,325 miles per gallon isn't breaking the sound barrier, but she's saving a lot of gas. Too bad the car is just a one seater. [url]
Toyota is working on an electric motor that isn't as dependent on rare earth metals. Rare earth metals aren't actually that rare, but China seems to have cornered a significant part of the market when it comes to mining and processing them. [url]
To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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DailyDirt: High Performance Vehicles Without Internal Combustion Engines

Michael Ho — Fri, 20 May 2011 17:00:00 PDT

Racing cars is supposed to lead to technologies that eventually end up in consumer vehicles. So if that's the case, there should be a lot more electric car races on the way, right? Well, there are... But the performance of electric cars isn't always awe-inspiring (except for straight-line drag racing, perhaps).

The European Union is talking about starting a Formula One racing event for electric vehicles. It could begin in 2013 if everything runs smoothly. [url]
Peugeot set a production electric car record at the Nürburgring track -- finishing a lap in about 9 minutes. Too bad that translates to a somewhat unimpressive average speed of 86 mph, though... [url]
All-electric cars usually suffer from limited range (compared to hydrocarbon-burning vehicles), but putting motors in the wheels eliminates drivetrains and other components -- which could produce electric cars with more practical recharging requirements. The Japanese SIM-LEI vehicle uses the same batteries from Toyota and gets a 200 mile range, which might help to end "range anxiety" for EV drivers. [url]
The National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA) promotes all kinds of electric vehicle performance competitions. Instant torque is a nice feature for electric motors, apparently. [url]
To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Using The Prius' Regenerative Brakes To Power A Roller Coaster

Mike Masnick — Fri, 6 May 2011 01:26:44 PDT

Notcot has this neat story about how some engineers are prototyping the idea of taking the regenerative braking system of the Toyota Prius, which effectively turns the "friction" into usable energy, rather than wasted energy, and using it in other contexts, such as to power a roller coaster. The general concept came from a program Toyota put together called "Ideas for Good," and one part of that included a commercial, where someone made the suggestion to power an amusement park with such a system. You can see that commercial here: That resulted in Toyota teaming up with Deeplocal to build a prototype system of a Prius coaster car that captures energy via the braking system. You can see the short video that shows the results (and some of the process) below: And back at the Notcot post there are a bunch of photos of the project as well. Here's just one to whet your appetite: To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the results. I recognize this is more proof of concept, but I'd really like to see something like this done on a bigger scale. It did feel like a bit of a letdown to just see a little slope and roll, rather than anything resembling a real rollercoaster. Perhaps we'll be able to do a followup post before too long with a bigger and better example...

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Why Would The NFL Force Toyota To Pull An Ad About Protecting Players From Concussions?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:01:33 PST

Copycense points us to the news that the NFL apparently freaked out and pressured Toyota to edit a TV ad it was running during football games -- a move many people noted was "unusual." Apparently, the ad discusses how Toyota is using some of their research and technology in car safety for other fields -- such as helping to prevent concussions for football players. You can see the ad here, with the "offending" part at around 17 seconds: I'm trying to figure out what the NFL was upset about. Here's a story of how efforts are being made to make the game even safer. That seems like a good thing -- the kind of thing that the NFL should be celebrating. Does it think that, if it hides the image of helmets colliding, people will magically think people don't get hurt playing football? And, of course, in pressuring Toyota to remove this commercial, all its done is draw a lot more attention to it. Toyota's response was apparently not to remove the ad entirely, but to just edit out that helmet-to-helmet crash. Well, phew, now football feels safe again, right?

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Toyota Settles Big Hybrid Engine Patent Lawsuit; Demonstrates The Patent Tax

Mike Masnick — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:59:11 PDT

RedGhost was the first of a few of you to pass along Jalopnik's detailed story of Toyota's long patent battle with Paice and its founder Alex Severinsky, over patents on hybrid engine technology, which was just settled. We've actually covered the story before, last year when Paice -- who had already won a court battle -- aimed to get a second crack at the apple, by taking the case to the ITC, which potentially could bar the import of Toyota vehicles into the US if it found that Toyota infringed. Toyota settled the case the day the ITC was to begin its investigation, and it did so for one reason: the potential liability from a possible injunction isn't worth the uncertainty. So you pay to make it go away.

But, of course, the reality of the situation was that everyone admits that Toyota invented its technology entirely independently. This is not a case of Toyota "stealing" or even "copying" an idea from someone else. That's not even in dispute. What people should be asking is why it's okay for a company that actually successfully built something for the market place have to pay a company that did not? Even Paice admits that "the market for hybrid cars 'did not take off' until Toyota 'revamped its vehicle program' with technology Paice patented almost a decade earlier." In other words, even Paice and Severinsky know that the success of the Prius was not because of his technology, but because of what Toyota did with it. As the blog Treehugger noted last year:

So if a company has a technology that could be a huge boon for drivers and the environment and they sit on it for a decade, does a competing company that finally does something with it and makes it a success really need to be sued repeatedly for using it? Paice seems to be somewhat at fault for not being effective enough with a smart technology.

Therein lies the rub of the patent system. It does not encourage innovation. It punishes it.

Furthermore, I have to point out some huge problems with Jalopnik's coverage of the story. Even though it notes that everyone admits that Toyota came up with these inventions independently (which, by the way, suggests that they never should have been patentable in the first place), it repeatedly makes statements that make it sound like Toyota copied the invention:

The Prius incorporated -- and continues to incorporate -- a version of Severinsky's technology. It was used without license or permission...

In what kind of world do we live in that people think it's okay to think someone needs a "license" or "permission" to use a technology that they, themselves, came up with, and which isn't even found on the market anywhere else? It's mind-boggling. Toyota didn't "incorporate" Severinsky's technology. Severinsky doesn't own the technology, and the technology in the Prius is not Severinsky's at all. Toyota incorporated its own technology, which Severinsky claimed infringed on his patents. The differences here are important, because writing it the way Jalopnik did implies that Toyota actually "took" something from Severinsky. This is why so many people are confused and think patent infringement is about copying or even "stealing."

Finally, Severinsky's quote about the settlement is equally bogus:

"Finally," he said, "people understand the merits of what I invented and give it the proper value. Toyota is the leading technology company and finally appreciates the value of the invention."

Um. No. Not at all. They invented this on their own and actually successfully made use of it -- unlike Severinsky. They didn't recognize the merits of what Severenski did. They did their own work, and made it a success in the market place.

Of course, as we've also noted in the past, the lesson that Toyota seems to have learned from all this is to get as many hybrid technology patents as possible and to work hard to hinder the innovation of everyone else's hybrid technology.

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The NUMMI Cargo Cult: Ideas Are Easy, Execution Is Hard

Mike Masnick — Thu, 1 Apr 2010 11:53:00 PDT

As some of you know, I have an undergraduate degree in industrial and labor relations -- which I got in the mid-90s. One of the things I remember clearly was that the big concerns at the time were over competition not from India or China -- which is what you hear about today -- but competition from Germany and Japan. I had multiple classes where we looked at how organizations and businesses worked in the US compared to Japan and Germany, with questions being asked about what methods made the most sense. A key case study was the case of NUMMI -- the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. I remember having to do case studies on NUMMI in three separate classes.

The Classic NUMMI Story

The simple story: GM had an auto plant in Fremont California that was the worst of the worst in terms of quality and productivity. The cars coming out of the factory were dreadful, and management and labor were constantly fighting -- even more than elsewhere, in an industry where labor and management have never been close. Eventually, in the early 80s, GM shut down the plant, but later worked out a deal with Toyota, to reopen the plant, under joint ownership -- with Toyota effectively running the plant. Both car companies could get something out of this. Toyota could start building cars in the US -- which was important as the US was threatening very high tariffs on imported Japanese cars, and GM would learn about how Toyota was able to build cars of much higher quality than GM. Amazingly (and against the wishes of both companies initially), the same awful workers who had worked at the plant previously were rehired.

But, then something amazing happened. Under the Toyota process, the plant flourished. The relationship between labor and management was no longer antagonistic, and the plant became much more productive, and quality shot sky high. It was a success story in almost every way. Through the late 80s and 90s, NUMMI was seen as the key to reviving American manufacturing (especially in the auto industry).

The New NUMMI Story

Today, on April 1st, 2010, NUMMI is shutting down for good. Last weekend's This American Life had an hour long episode all about what happened to NUMMI -- from the original, horrible old plant, to the revitalization, and then up through now as it's closing. The episode explains the second half of the story. If NUMMI was so miraculous, why is it now shutting down? Why is GM bankrupt? Hell, why is Toyota now recalling millions of cars over serious quality questions. What the hell happened?

Ideas Are Easy, Execution Is Hard

It really is a fascinating story all around -- but the key to me is that it highlights the vast difference between ideas and execution. We've said it before: lots of people have good ideas, but it's much, much more difficult to execute on a good idea. However, as a society, we tend to assume that the execution is easy, but the ideas are hard -- getting the equation backwards. NUMMI was a success -- for both GM and Toyota, but GM got the wrong lessons out of it.

Initially, it really just took the superficial parts of what worked at NUMMI in trying to expand that kind of production elsewhere. GM ignored the nuts and bolts of how to really execute on the teamwork process and how to focus on continual improvement. In one case, a GM manager even told someone to go to NUMMI and photograph every square inch, so that it could be recreated in a different plant, without bothering to care about how the rest of it worked. This is just the "idea." It's the window dressing. It's what people see that's pretty and clean, but not what's really going on behind the scenes.

How NUMMI Became A Cargo Cult

In fact, it sounds like the folks at Toyota knew this all along. While many were surprised that Toyota would "give up its secrets" to GM, someone on the program points out that the GM folks asked all the wrong questions. They were focused on the shiny front-end stuff, and not the dirty back-end of how it all really worked. As, we've pointed out before, it's like the infamous cargo cults that think if they just copy what they see of something, they'll get the same results, totally missing the fact that the execution involves a lot more than you can see.

Following that, GM kept trying and failing (miserably) to replicate the success of NUMMI elsewhere -- but as the report points out, it effectively took two decades, often involving numerous execs who had to spend years at NUMMI before moving elsewhere, before GM finally realized that what worked at NUMMI involved a lot more than just teamwork and a cable that allowed anyone to stop the line. It was more than a cargo cult. It was more than the idea. It involved a lot of careful, detailed execution. But, of course, by then it was too late. GM's reputation for making crappy cars was well established. Add in a healthy dose of paralyzing union agreements and whack the whole thing around with a freefall economy, and you have a bankrupt car company, now mostly owned by the US government.

Oh, and as for Toyota's more recent problems? It seems that it may have learned some of GM's bad lessons in return. It started focusing on rapid growth over quality in an attempt to bulk up and compete -- and now it may be facing some of the same problems that GM faced.

It's The Execution, Stupid...

In the end, though, it really is a fascinating case study. The original case studies from back in the 90's of what worked at NUMMI only told half of the story. The closing of NUMMI today highlights the other half: ideas are easy. Executing is hard. Pretending it's the other way around can get you into an awful lot of trouble.

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Why You Don't Want Politicians Doing Your Engineering For You

Mike Masnick — Mon, 8 Mar 2010 14:44:00 PST

We frequently worry (or point out the negative consequences) of technologically illiterate politicians passing laws that impact technology. It goes beyond just laws, however, into other investigations. Frank Ahrens, at the Washington Post, highlights what happens when you have technologically illiterate politicians trying to investigate the Toyota acceleration problem, highlighting a troubling exchange between Toyota's boss, Akio Toyoda, and Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Congresswoman from DC:

Toyoda said that when his company gets a complaint about a mechanical problem, engineers set to work trying to duplicate the problem in their labs to find out what went wrong.

Norton said: "Your answer -- we'll wait to see if this is duplicated -- is very troublesome." Norton asked Toyoda why his company waited until a problem recurred to try to diagnose it, which is exactly what he was not saying.

Members of Congress are generally lawyers and politicians, not engineers. But they are launching investigations and creating policies that have a direct impact on the designers and builders of incredibly complex vehicles -- there are 20,000 parts in a modern car -- so there are some basics they should understand. Chief among them: The only way to credibly figure out why something fails is to attempt to duplicate the failure under observable conditions. This is the engineering method.

But, of course, understanding how engineering and technology works doesn't get you (re-)elected. Grandstanding does.

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As Cars Get More Complicated, Maybe Open Source Is The Way

Dennis Yang — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:30:56 PST

Back in 1999, a well-circulated false press release made the rounds, supposedly written in response to Bill Gates' jab at the auto industry at COMDEX that year. The memo joked:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason at all, your car would crash twice a day.

Of course, fast forward 10 years, and this is no longer really a joke anymore. Cars are now more complicated than ever, and now computers play a crucial part in the safe and efficient operation of modern automobiles. Today's premium vehicles probably contain close to 100 million lines of software code. That fact, coupled with the recent massive Toyota recall, seems to have spurred Slate's Farhad Manjoo to ask "Should we be worried that our cars are controlled by software?"

Perhaps if you're really into worrying for the sake of worrying, sure, I suppose the increasing complexity of the software in cars seems like a good reason to don a tinfoil hat. Certainly, compared to cars a quarter century ago, there's a huge amount of new technology between you and the road. But, cars are also safer and more efficient than ever before. While it's true that the software in cars may have bugs, that's really nothing new to be that concerned about -- car manufacturers issue recalls and maintenance updates all of the time to deal with not just software bugs, but mechanical problems as well. In the future, regular software updates may replace oil changes as regular maintenance for cars. But, the biggest Toyota recalls this year were still mechanical in nature: the floor mats and gas pedals, neither of which are remotely affected by any software in the car. Finally, as Manjoo points out, driver error is still the most common cause of accidents, so until we remove the human element from the driving equation (along with all of the driving distractions), recalled cars are really nothing to get worked up about.

That said, Michael A. Spiegel over at the Software Freedom Law Center makes an interesting point about this situation:

If Toyota truly wanted to repair its public image and reputation for quality, it would make its source code available to anyone interested, not just a single government regulator. The public is far more likely to discover bugs and suggest improvements than a relatively small number of overworked and potentially inexperienced government employees.

This is a intriguing proposition for a number of reasons. By releasing its software to the open source community, they could become key participants in the growing open source car ecosystem. By doing so, they could potentially benefit from the collective intelligence of that community looking at their code. Sure, Toyota may scoff at sharing what they consider to be proprietary IP with potential competitors, but in this case, Toyota could stand to gain more than it would potentially be giving away. After all, while software definitely is playing a critical part in automotive systems, by itself, it is not the selling point of a car. Even the e-voting industry is coming around to open source, after balking at the idea for years. For a variety of reasons, the automobile industry seems ripe for the exploration of new models right now. Programs like CityCarShare and ZipCar could be seen as "Automobiles As A Service" -- so maybe we'll start to see a Red Hat-like automobile company emerge in the near future.

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Bad Idea Central: Toyota Sued After Viral Marketing Attempt Convinced Woman She Was Being Stalked

Mike Masnick — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:38:56 PDT

Lots of companies are aiming to create all kinds of "viral advertising," and certainly automated "prank calls" that are really ads (often for movies) have become common in the last few years. But that doesn't do much to excuse Toyota's behavior. Apparently, the company put together a promotional campaign that allowed friends to freak out their friends, by convincing them they were being stalked. Here's how Toyota described it:

YourOtherYou is a unique interactive experience enabling consumers to play extravagant pranks. Simply input a little info about a friend (phone, address, etc.) and we'll then use it, without their knowledge, to freak them out through a series of dynamically personalized phone calls, texts, emails and videos. First, one of five virtual lunatics will contact your friend. They will seem to know them intimately, and tell them that they are driving cross-country to visit. It all goes downhill from there. The Matrix integrates seamlessly into the experience and you can follow the progress of your prank in real-time online. Each piece of the campaign assures that the experience is as Google-proof as possible.

Sound like fun? Not really. Especially not for Amber Duick, who "had difficulty eating, sleeping and going to work" after receiving a bunch of phone calls from this prank, believing that some "lunatic" stranger was on his way from England to see her. At one point, she even received a bill from a hotel that this stranger supposedly "trashed." Har har. Buy a Toyota.

How does Toyota defend the campaign? By claiming that Duick agreed to it. How, you ask? Well, Toyota sneakily inserts "permission" into a personality test it sends the "victim" of the prank, from the "friend" who initiated it. It's difficult to see how that kind of agreement stands up in court. Hiding an agreement for something entirely different (and pretty damn creepy) inside the agreement for a personality test from a friend? How is that informed consent?

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Patent Holder Takes A Second Crack At Toyota Over Hybrid Technology

Mike Masnick — Wed, 9 Sep 2009 21:33:00 PDT

Earlier this year, we wrote about how Toyota had been stockpiling a ton of patents around hybrid vehicle technology, such that almost no other carmaker could make hybrid vehicles without paying up. Of course, there was some history to that story, as Toyota had lost a big lawsuit by a patent holder named Paice a few years back, requiring a fee to be paid on a bunch of Toyota hybrids. However, apparently that wasn't enough. Gary points out that, not only has Paice filed some new lawsuits over more recent hybrid Toyotas, it's also taking a separate crack at the issue via the International Trade Commission (ITC), an infamous loophole used by patent holders to get multiple cracks at a company over the same patent. The link above from Treehugger asks a question that plenty of folks following the patent world have been asking for years:

Here's a bit of a kicker: With the last suit, "Paice said the market for hybrid cars "did not take off" until Toyota "revamped its vehicle program" with technology Paice patented almost a decade earlier." So if a company has a technology that could be a huge boon for drivers and the environment and they sit on it for a decade, does a competing company that finally does something with it and makes it a success really need to be sued repeatedly for using it? Paice seems to be somewhat at fault for not being effective enough with a smart technology.

Indeed. This isn't a case of patents being used to enable innovation. It's a clear case of patents being used to hinder innovation -- and the patent holder seems to have no qualms about admitting that no real innovation happened until Toyota came along.

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How Toyota Is Using Patents To Slow The Growth Of Hybrid Vehicles

Mike Masnick — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 11:55:23 PDT

Slashdot points us to a WSJ story about how Toyota has purposely built up a patent thicket so thick that basically no one can build hybrid vehicles without paying up:

Since it started developing the gas-electric Prius more than a decade ago, Toyota has kept its attorneys just as busy as its engineers, meticulously filing for patents on more than 2,000 systems and components for its best-selling hybrid. Its third-generation Prius, which hit showrooms in May, accounts for about half of those patents alone.

Toyota's goal: to make it difficult for other auto makers to develop their own hybrids without seeking licensing from Toyota, as Ford Motor Co. already did to make its Escape hybrid and Nissan Motor Co. has for its Altima hybrid.

Defenders of the patent system often say that there's no problem: others should just "invent around" the patents. But when companies create a patent thicket like this, that makes it effectively impossible. The end result? We all lose. This makes it that much more expensive and difficult for others to innovate, because they need to allocate money to Toyota, rather than to their own innovations. It slows down Toyota as well, since it's devoting so much time and effort to lawyers. And it massively slows down the market. Rather than competing on innovation and a better product, the focus is on patents. And since it slows down competitors it means Toyota doesn't need to innovate as fast either. In the meantime... not only does the economy suffer, but so does the environment.

Of course, we can't just blame Toyota for this. It's the system that created such a scenario. In fact, Toyota recently went through a long and arduous patent battle with someone else over patents held by that guy -- resulting in Toyota having to pay a tax on every hybrid it makes. So, perhaps it's no wonder that it's trying to gobble up as many patents as possible around hybrids, if only to have the necessary "stockpile" for future patent battles against competitors. Once again, it's the entire patent system that's leading to this questionable result that harms everyone... except the lawyers, of course.

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Lexus' Trial Balloon On Car Spam

Mike Masnick — Fri, 9 Jan 2009 13:35:00 PST

Lexus has announced plans to roll out a system that will allow the company to send audio messages to its cars, which most people immediately realized meant we should get ready for spam in our cars. It's pretty obvious that's what Lexus is thinking when it says things like: "messages can be highly targeted, such as tailored for those who have a specific vehicle type or who live in a particular ZIP code." However, the company is obviously sensitive to the spam issue, saying that "We're not going to barrage customers with marketing messages," and noting that some may not want this: "Many of our owners enjoy their car as a cocoon." The whole thing sounds like a trial balloon idea to see how people react, and so far it doesn't sound good. You could see some potentially useful situation -- such as in the event of a recall, but the likelihood of someone in marketing getting a "brilliant idea" for some extra revenue and pissing off a lot of people just seems too high.

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Toyota Takes After Ford In Claiming Ownership Of Fan Photos

Mike Masnick — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:29:00 PST

You may recall that Ford has been rather aggressive in telling fans of various Ford cars that they have no right to create things like calendars from photos they, themselves, have taken. Basically, Ford has claimed ownership of any photos of Ford vehicles. That, of course, is crazy. But apparently the thinking extends to other car companies as well. Apparently, Toyota is now threatening a site that hosts various "desktop wallpapers" for computers because it offers up a variety of wallpapers made up of images of various Toyota automobiles.

TorrentFreak, who has written up the article, exaggerates a bit in claiming that this is the most "wildly arrogant" DMCA claim. After all, Ford did exactly the same thing earlier, and plenty of other companies have done similar things. Also, apparently Toyota hasn't actually invoked the DMCA yet, simply telling the site's owner he has to remove the images or it would send DMCA notices. Rather obnoxiously, when the guy who runs the site asked which images, specifically, violated Toyota's intellectual property, Toyota's lawyers responded that they would only identify them if the site's owner paid for their time. Of course, the DMCA actually requires you to name the specific infringing files.

You might possibly be able to make a case that Toyota could sorta maybe make a trademark claim here -- that some might assume that the desktop wallpapers were officially offered by Toyota, but that wouldn't explain why they're threatening to use the DMCA, which has nothing to do with trademarks.

However, most importantly, as we noted with the Ford situation, it makes no sense to beat up on fans of your products who are sharing photos of the cars they love and are actively promoting the cars for the automakers. It seems like yet another case where lawyers simply freak out without realizing how much damage they're doing to their client's brand. Update: Good news! In the comments, Ford claims that the earlier story was a misunderstanding (though, don't exactly explain how come it's happened multiple times) and Toyota has also apologized for the threat, saying that it was a mistake.

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Lexus Gets Into The Video Hosting Business...?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:42:00 PDT

So, we were a little confused recently when Toyota sued a nude model for using the name Alexus, as it seemed difficult to believe there would be any "confusion" between the two. However, who knew that Lexus was getting into the entertainment business? We've talked in the past about BMW's famous BMW Films effort, as an example of how the future of advertising needs to recognize the blurring lines between content and advertising. In BMW's case, each film was directed by a famous filmmaker, starred actor Clive Owen, and included a BMW that tended to act as something of a co-star. The films were entertaining as pure content, rather than as traditional advertising.

Since then, we've seen plenty of other companies try similar things, with varying degrees of success. For example, the recent set of Microsoft ads involving Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates received a very mixed reaction -- in part because people expected them to be like traditional ads, pitching a specific product, rather than creating a story line that was entertaining in its own right.

Now, one of our readers, William Jackson, points us to an experiment apparently by the car company, Lexus (a part of Toyota). It's called L Studio, and appears to be something of a web video platform, showing a bunch of professionally produced videos. As Jackson notes, some of them do involve a Lexus, such as this documentary about an artist creating a piece of artwork out of a Lexus: However, others seem to have absolutely nothing to do with Lexus automobiles at all, and often star recognizable actors, such as this video starring Famke Janssen trying to juggle her dating life with her dog: I'm sure some will complain that these sorts of videos don't make any sense, as they do nothing to promote the vehicles -- but it may be worth seeing where this campaign goes from here. Some of the videos are entertaining and help put Lexus' brand around "lifestyle" content, and that could get people to start associating the Lexus brand with a certain type of lifestyle. Sure, it might not be as "in your face" as sponsoring a TV show or doing product placement, but if the content is good and gets people to seek it out rather than intrude on what they're doing, this could be a very effective branding campaign.

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Can A Moron In A Hurry Tell The Difference Between A Nude Model And A Car?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 8 Oct 2008 11:47:00 PDT

An anonymous reader sends in word of yet another highly questionable trademark infringement lawsuit, as Toyota, makers of Lexus vehicles has filed a lawsuit against a nude model, who goes by the name Alexus Winston (link is probably NSFW, depending on your work environment). As the folks at Fleshbot note: "Lexus is a line of luxury automobiles put out by Toyota. Alexus Winston is a naked model." Anyone want to volunteer to be the moron in a hurry to prove that it's rather easy to tell the difference between the two?

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Toyota Adds Solar Power To Hybrid

Mike Masnick — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 15:24:00 PDT

Toyota, already considered a leader in producing hybrid gas-electric vehicles is apparently preparing to make that hybrid a bit more hybrid: it's going to add solar panels to some models, using the solar energy to power air conditioning. It's not much, but it's a start. I've actually been fascinated with solar vehicles since the fifth grade (yikes) when I convinced some engineers at GM to send me some cheap solar panels to build a tiny solar-powered car (Chrysler ignored my letter, Ford sent a form letter in response). While GM had invested in some prototypes and took part in various solar powered car contests, the technology has never been good enough to do very much at a practical level. Now, how long will it be until Toyota figures out a way to use wind power as well?

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