Seeing Green with Toyota (TM)

Here is my next suggestion: TM (Toyota Motor). I am not so hot on this, it has done quite of bit of moving already and may be taking a rest for a while. It’s at 97, coming down from a new history high at 100+. However, this stock has three things going for it. First is the emotional barrier. It’s looking like it is posed to take over GM’s #1 spot sometime in 2006, although they don’t like to brag about it. While GM hemorrhages, TM just keeps seeing green. GM cuts the prices of their cars, TM just keeps raising them (which will give them plenty of room to move around if times get tough), and still TM keeps taking shares. TM has spent a lot, and I mean a lot, of money for new factories, but it looks like they have the numbers to back it up in terms of ability to sell cars. Some of these factories are also PR factories. In other words, how could Americans say that Toyota was anti American if they have huge factories all over the US? Is there anything less American than a car made in Texas? We’ll see. But once these factories come on line and start spitting out cars, and if there is a market, the TM stock will be like a money tree: it'll just keep making money and taking GM shares from them (which is another problem for another day: who pays when GM goes belly up?).
But what Toyota really has going for it is that it makes the most green pimpable car out there (I think that is the first time in my life I have used the word ‘pimpable’): the Prius. Two different companies have made two very cool ‘mods’ (that’s ‘modifications’ for those of you who aren’t ‘in’) for this car. The first company, out of California, turns the Prius into a plug in car. Goes from 50mpg to 100 by plugging the thing in at night. Toyota is on the fence about this because they have spent a lot of time and $ convincing people in Kansas that you don’t have to plug in a hybrid. But consumers, I think, have gotten the message, they are interested in moving on to the next technology, which seems to be a plug in. So this company modifies cars so that you can plug them in at night, while Toyota just sits tightlipped. People say its because Toyota doesn’t know what to do with the warranty: does this void it or not. I say it’s because Toyota is going to come out with their own version and start selling it to a select number of people who ask for it until it becomes as common as the Prius is now. While pundits are saying that even if we plug it in, it still consumes nonrenewable energy, coal, nuclear, etc, depending where you live, to them I say shut your pie hole. Here comes ‘mod’ 2: solar panels on the car and on the roof. For a bit more than $2000 you can get slick solar panels on the roof of your Prius, improving gas mileage by another 10%. Surely Toyota is watching this. Both of these ‘mods’ within the next few years will become ‘options’ when you go to buy your sweet Prius and other Toyota hybrids. Prius is going to be the next Apple: each time you buy a Toyota product, you will always want the next, newer one because it is just a little bit cooler. And while Toyota gets cooler, the American Automakers will just keep insisting that what Americans want are SUVs. So to sum it up: moderate Buy on TM.