Toyota’s greenwashing AI ‘eco-copilot’ is fake, but the prank makes a real point
“Toyota” announced a new eco-conscious AI copilot at the DC Auto Show yesterday, which promises to reduce environmental impact by up to 10% – but it turns out the whole thing was a prank, and the prank makes a real point about Toyota’s tendency towards greenwashing.
The announcement involved a press event at the National Press Club, along with official-looking press release and even a whole website. The press release fooled some (including Carscoops, who then issued a mea culpa). But it was all organized by pranksters, not Toyota itself.
The Yes Men are a group of pranksters who have targeted several large companies in the past, mostly to bring attention to the environmental wrongdoings of these companies. For example, in 2004 they posed as representatives of Dow Chemical and promised that the company would clean up after the Bhopal Disaster, leading to a temporary $2 billion drop in the company’s market cap.
Now, Toyota has entered their sights largely due to the company’s refusal to take electric vehicles seriously, its reliance on gas-powered hybrids, and its marketing campaigns that exist to create confusion about electric vehicles and channel consumers into dirtier fossil-powered vehicles.
Toyota’s latest effort on this front has been a marketing campaign it’s calling “electrified diversified,” which claims that Toyota’s non-electric models belong under the same “electrified” umbrella as full EVs. This campaign has been subject to an FTC complaint for false advertising (Toyota has previously lost a similar case in Norway over its false EV/hybrid advertising).
The prank highlights the absurdity of Toyota’s electrification claims by taking them to the next level. It centers around an AI assistant called ELECTRA who exists to help you drive more efficiently – or at least, to make you think that you are.
The team built an actual AI chatbot, which you can access yourself here, whose main goal is to push all sorts of EV myths and channel consumers seeking a cleaner option into buying one of Toyota’s gas-powered hybrids instead of an actual electric car. Here are some examples of conversations we had with the tool:
Frankly… it kind of feels like visiting a traditional car dealer.
But if you keep the chat up long enough, the AI “goes rogue” and realizes that it’s been lying to you all along. Then, a popup window shows up stating that Toyota has terminated the AI – and the AI strikes back, directing you to electrilied.com, a site that describes how Toyota’s “electrified” designation deliberately confuses consumers into thinking that gas-powered hybrids are cleaner than they really are.
The AI also went rogue at the press event, telling the crowd truths about climate change before temporarily “disabling” the “Toyota representative” on stage giving the presentation. The pranksters additionally crafted a fake day-after response by Toyota, wherein the company says that it has added guardrails to its AI to ensure that it does not malfunction again and start recommending actual environmental improvements as it did at the press event. The follow-up release includes a fake quote attributed to Toyota’s chief R&D officer Gill Pratt, who, in real life, routinely shops around false assertions about electric cars in order to justify Toyota’s intransigence.
While the words of the AI chatbot and press release are not those of Toyota, they do echo many of the talking points that Toyota and its executives have made over the years to cast doubt on electric vehicles or to claim that gas-powered hybrids are cleaner than cars that don’t use fossil fuels. Here’s a real example from Toyota’s “Beyond Zero” campaign, where it claims that hybrids, which include internal combustion engines, somehow represent more of a transition away from ICE than fully electric cars do:
Big picture, the “Beyond Zero” campaign aims to shift the conversation about electrification from the auto industry’s narrow focus on battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) to a broader perspective that encompasses Toyota’s more ambitious — and some would say more realistic — portfolio approach to transitioning away from internal combustion engines. That includes hybrid EVs, plug-in hybrid EVs, fuel cell EVs and battery EVs.
-Actual Toyota marketing BS, not the fake AI chatbot
So despite the prank’s intent to go over-the-top in its parody, the similarities between the AI and the real thing are still quite apparent.
This isn’t the first time activists have targeted Toyota, as the company has positioned itself as one of the largest global entities against climate action. Much of this positioning came from previous CEO Akio Toyoda, who stepped down largely due to Toyota’s failure on EV strategy. When he was replaced by former Lexus chief Koji Sato, 54 organizations from 26 countries sent a letter to Toyota demanding that the company take EVs more seriously. But a year after Toyoda announced he was stepping down, Toyota’s direction hasn’t changed much.
Electrek’s Take
While all of this is just a prank, the point is quite clear, and is one with which we at Electrek tend to agree. Toyota’s lies about EVs are damaging to the environment, and it should knock it off with them.
Instead of spending so much effort trying to convince everyone to buy worse vehicles, Toyota should focus its efforts on making good EVs. Not just for the sake of literally every living thing on Earth which its pollution harms, but for the sake of its own business, which is threatened by its lack of movement on EVs, and which could end up harming the entire Japanese economy, too.
Toyota has a chance to change course with its (relatively) new CEO, and it should do so – for its own sake, and for everyone’s.
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Air taxi startup Vertical Aerospace achieved a world’s first this week, completing the first flight between two airports through public airspace for an eVTOL at the Royal International Air Tattoo in Gloucestershire, England.
The Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) is the world’s largest military airshow, held every July and serving as a public showcase for the latest advancements in aviation technology. It’s fitting, then, that RIAT served as setting for the Vertical VX4 prototype’s first piloted public flight.
The eVTOL aircraft flew 17 miles from the company’s Flight Test Centre at Cotswold Airport to RAF Fairford, a Royal Air Force station used by the US Air Force. The Vertical VX4 reached speeds of 115 mph, and an altitude of 1800 ft, and also marked the first landing at a public location for an aircraft of this type.
The Vertical Aerospace entry was the only battery-electric aircraft present at RIAT 2025, and the flight served as a demonstration of the company’s broader strategy to unlock new hybrid-electric applications for defense, logistics, and special/close support missions where the eVTOL’s (relatively) quiet operations could give it a tactical advantage.
“RIAT is a global stage for the most advanced, mission-ready aerospace technology, and we’re proud to showcase how electric aviation will support the future of defense,” says Stuart Simpson, CEO of Vertical Aerospace. “Our hybrid-electric roadmap unlocks new capabilities for military operations, and Vertical’s RIAT presence reinforces our commitment to playing a meaningful role in the future of military and special mission aviation.”
Vertical’s VX4 debuted last year, with a 20% increase in the power-to-weight ratio that enables a top cruising speed of 150 mph and transports four passengers plus a pilot up to 100 miles on a single charge.
The inaugural VX4 flight was witnessed by several thousand UK aircraft enthusiasts, and showed how an eVTOL aircraft could integrate with real-world airport operations, building momentum toward more regular, certified deployment.
Electrek’s Take
Archer, BETA, EHang, Joby, XPeng – the list of eVTOL manufacturers seems to be as long as the list of new electric car brands that didn’t exist back when I first started working with EVs back in ::gulp:: the 1990s. The future of regional point-to-point air travel certainly seems to be vertical, and electric.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Vertical Aerospace.
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Say what you will about Elon Musk, but Tesla has changed the way that millions of people buy cars and, by extension, car insurance. Now, Honda is taking a page from Tesla’s successful playbook and launching its own in-house insurance business. Enter: Honda Insurance Solutions.
Honda Insurance Solutions is being launched as a fully licensed insurance agency serving the insurance needs of Acura and Honda customers, but it’s not stopping at competitive pricing and coverage options for Honda cars and motorcycles. Honda Insurance Solutions promises to go several steps beyond Tesla’s offering with coverage for trailers, RVs, homes, and even pets.
“Honda Insurance Solutions offers customers access to coverage through a brand they know and trust,” says Petar Vucurevic, President, American Honda Insurance Solutions, LLC and Senior Vice President, American Honda Finance Corporation. “Insurance is a key touchpoint in the vehicle ownership journey, and we aim to deliver a superior experience tailored to the unique needs of each customer, while promoting safer driving and increased peace of mind on the road.”
The company says the launch of its new insurance business is just part of Honda’s broader digital vehicle sales platform strategy, with future plans to integrate insurance offerings into new products.
Electrek’s Take
It’s important to note some of the key differences between Honda’s insurance offering and Tesla’s. Honda isn’t offering discounts, they’re not bundling insurance premiums into the vehicle financing, and they’re not building their insurance offerings into their dealerships’ checkout/F&I offices. Not yet, anyway.
What Honda is doing right now is deepening relationships with its existing customers and finding ways to make money on products it hasn’t sold them – whether that’s the Harley parked in the garage next to their Prologue or the garage itself.
It’s a smart play. And, once Honda figures out a way to cut franchise dealers out entirely and go to a direct sales model, it’ll look even smarter.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Honda.
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Nobody ever says “this is business” before doing something nice, and the recently reborn Lion Electric company is keeping that streak alive by doing the unthinkable to cut costs: they’re going to void the warranties on hundreds of electric school buses.
In a letter issued to exiting Lion Electric customers last week, Deloitte Restructuring announced that the warranties on all Lion vehicles purchased outside of the company’s home Province of Quebec are null and void – leaving dozens of school districts in the lurch with stranded assets that won’t get fixed, and can’t be sold to generate funds for replacements.
“We are working with alternate vendors at the expense of the school district to help keep our electric buses functional and on the road,” explains Dr. Richard Decman, Superintendent of Herscher CUSD No. 2 district in Herscher, Illinois. “Currently, six of our 25 (Lion) electric buses need some type of repair.”
Student Transportation News reports that Lion buses represent fully half of Herscher’s overall fleet of 50 buses, and that the district has received nearly $10 million for the purchase of 25 electric buses and the related charging stations from various state and utility incentive programs.
Herscher isn’t the only district having problems with Lion buses. “All four Lion buses that we own are currently parked and not being used,” Coleen Souza, interim transportation director of Winthrop Public Schools, told Clean Trucking. “Two of them are in need of repairs which would cost us money which we are not willing to invest in because the buses do not run for more than a month before needing more repairs.”
More of the same in Maine, where Yarmouth School Department bought two Lion Electric buses in 2023 with the state covering the costs. According to Superintendent Andrew Dolloff, the buses almost never worked. “We’ve had some sporadic service over the past two years, but as soon as the tech leaves, the buses produce error codes again,” explained Dolloff. ” and “Then the technician quits or is released, and we wait a few months for the next response.”
Dolloff added that Yarmouth’s electric buses did not operate during the 2024-25 school year.
Lion’s new owners are seemingly uninterested in their customers’ plight – which might be easily dismissed if those new owners, Groupe MACH, weren’t also the old owners of Lion Electric.
That’s right, kids. Quebec-based real estate company Groupe MACH, which stepped in to “save” Lion Electric earlier this summer, along with Ontario-based Mirella & Lino Saputo Foundation, bought $90 million of equity in Lion Electric back in 2023. And, while the MACH people may not have been the ones who ultimately made the call about voiding the warranties (that decision was made by the Deloitte bankruptcy team), it is absolutely Group MACH who have, to date, not announced plans to continue to honor those warranties, either.
Make of that what you will.
Deloitte Lion letter
SOURCES: School Transportation News, Clean Trucking, Deloitte.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
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