TOYOTA’S PLANO HQ A SIGHT TO BEHOLD!

By NITISH S. RELE – motoringflorida@gmail.com

Sitting on over 100 acres, the campus of seven buildings has 5,000 employees, 500 meeting spaces, four parking garages for 8,000 vehicles, a Wal-Mart albeit small, convenience store, pharmacy, medical clinic, full-size credit union, ATM, Starbucks and a gymnasium. A large central courtyard serves as the core with dining, fitness and conferencing facilities. Do we hear, state-of-the-art? You bet. And there is much more to the 2.1-million-square-foot facility in Plano, Texas, that became Toyota’s North American headquarters in 2017.

About 260 employees work in the adjoining Lexus building with its dining center offering multiple cuisines, among numerous amenities. As Lexus celebrates 35 years, the luxury division’s Cynthia Tenhouse and Joe Moses spoke of the Lexus Experience and its covenant – “Omotenashi” (or anticipating hospitality). A year ago, the division added Lexus Monogram, an integrated user experience, which provides buyers flexibility to purchase their vehicle from online to in-store. Another program, Lexus Reserve, offers an owner a free 30-day rental over the course of three years on purchase/lease of a new Lexus. Destinations by Lexus partners with hotels, resorts, vineyards/estates to deliver varying credits, upgrades and complimentary valet parking to owners.

Lest we forget, there’s the 44,000-square-foot Toyota Experience Center that gives the visitor a glimpse of some of the carmaker’s most iconic first vehicles, chronicling the journey of its transformation over decades. Race car enthusiasts will dig the automobiles that competed to enrich the carmaker’s rich history.

Environmental sustainability has been key for Toyota and evidence of it can be found plentiful in its HQ with landscaping to reflect natural surroundings, thousands of solar panels and renewable energy. During our tour, Environmental Sustainability Senior Director Kevin Butt highlighted the automaker’s progress toward green with a Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050 for a more workable future. The eighth environmental action plan is a five-year road map toward achieving 2050 goals. The aim is to be carbon neutral for vehicles by then. Since 2019, Toyota touts reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 12 percent. Two-thirds of its new vehicles now offer an electrified option. Carbon, materials, water and biodiversity are the four environmental focus areas across vehicle life cycles, said Butt.

Among successes to be noted in the ecofriendly field is the Tri-gen technology in Long Beach, Calif., Toyota’s first port vehicle processing facility powered by 100 percent renewable electricity. Water stewardship with the Nature Conservancy to address water shortage issues in the Colorado River delta has also been undertaken. There also are alliances with Pollinator Partnership and National Environmental Education Foundation to develop pollinator habitats too.