Toyota NA CEO Jim Lentz Discusses “Toyota in Texas”
Yesterday, I attended the “Toyota in Texas” luncheon at the Austin Economic Club in downtown Austin. In front of a ballroom full of suit-wearing politicians and business leaders dining on mixed-greens salads and baked chicken, the editor-in-chief and CEO of The Texas Tribune, Evan Smith, discussed the present and future of Toyota North America with its CEO, Jim Lentz.
You all are probably aware that Toyota NA is relocating many of its California, Kentucky, and New York employees to its new headquarters in the northeastern Texas city of Plano. Currently, 300 employees have already made the move; after the facility is completed in the first quarter of 2017, approximately 4,000 employees from Toyota’s manufacturing, sales and marketing, and corporate and financial services divisions will have offices there.
Of course, $40 million in financial incentives from the state of Texas was one of the reasons why the automaker purchased 100 acres in the Lone Star State – but not the only one. Smith mentioned that North Carolina had offered Toyota more than $100 million to get its business, only to be turned down. Lentz and Toyota had to consider other factors, such as the quality of life employees would enjoy, their eventual costs of living, the cost and availability of real estate, and airport accessibility. This centralization should enable Toyota NA to make decisions more quickly and is intended to satisfy a directive from Toyota Motor Corporation President Akio Toyoda to help sustain the company for the next 50 years. Car buyers should get better models in a shorter amount of time.
These days, the future is most certainly on the minds of the top brass at the Volkswagen Group in the wake of Dieselgate. The possible industry regulations brought about by the German conglomerate’s actions are not a concern to Lentz, though. He considers the issue a matter of trust and firmly stated Toyota has no emissions-cheating software of its own in place.
When asked for his views on autonomous cars, Lentz replied that autonomous vehicles do not equate to driverless vehicles; a human still needs to be behind the wheel, making decisions. However, by the end of 2017, every Toyota will come with an emergency braking system which will stop the vehicle when an imminent collision is detected without the driver putting their foot on the brake pedal.
The 3D printing of replacement parts is another safety concern. Lentz said Toyota spends four years developing and testing the parts that go into its models; he worries about the quality of safety-related components 3D printed by third parties. That’s not to say that Toyota doesn’t make its own parts using that technology, though. According to Lentz, Toyota prototypes use 3D-built hardware.
As I said I would last week in my post about the Australian head of Lexus not favoring a sub-NX crossover, I asked Lentz for his opinion on the matter. He and Sean Hanley share the same point of view. Lentz told me he doesn’t want Lexus to follow its competitors downmarket by offering a smaller, less expensive vehicle than the popular entry-level NX crossover, which starts at $34,480*. In fact, he’s not sure if the U.S. market is ready for such a vehicle.
What do you think? Would you buy something smaller and more affordable than the NX if Lexus made it?
*MSRP excludes delivery, processing, and handling fee of $940.
interview picture [Jason Isaac on Twitter]
