When it comes to putting bums in seats and staying in the black, few carmakers can match Toyota.

Yet, after years of record-making profits, even the world’s largest car manufacturer is getting its clock cleaned these days. For the first time in 59 years, its’s losing money. According to the New York Times, the Japanese company dropped some $4 billion (US) in the first three months of this year and expects to lose a further $5 billion by the end of 2009. In the words of Toyota Canada’s managing director, Stephen Beatty, carmakers - and not just his - have been coping with a "volatile" market. "The auto industry has been doing its best to adjust to this volatility," he explained recently at a vehicle launch in Vancouver, "but it has not been an easy ride for anyone."

What to do? Go greener than ever and leaner than ever. According to Beatty, his company has introduced 10 new fuel-efficient vehicles since the beginning of 2009....in all market categories. "Toyota’s first growth spurt in North America was the provision of fuel-efficient vehicles in the height of the 1973 oil crisis," he explained. "It is the reason why we continue to move forward."

Thus the company’s "More Power, Less Fuel" marketing push. Here’s the message: next time you’re shopping for a new car and you think you need a V6 or V8 engine, consider the same model but with a smaller, thriftier four cylinder powerplant. Toyota is offering bigger and more refined four-bangers than ever, and you can get them in large and mid-size vehicles as well as small ones. Models like the Highlander, RAV4, and Venza SUVs, plus the ever-popular Camry. It’s also upping the content of these models, so that buyers don’t have to compromise in terms of creature comforts when they opt for a less potent drivetrain.

Take the Highlander. Up until now, this full-size, 4WD SUV has been available with either a V6 or hybrid engine. As of ‘09, you can now get a front-wheel-drive version with a gas-sipping 187 horsepower, 2.7 litre four cylinder engine as well. In tandem with its 2WD layout, it’ll deliver some 10.4 L/100 km in town and 7.3 L./100 km on the highway. This engine is also found in the Venza and RAV4, and is actually bigger than some V6s.

Although it’s not exactly a powerhouse and isn’t blessed with an abundance of reserve power, the new front-drive Highlander exhibits none of the rambunctiousness and roughness you might expect from a four cylinder engine of this girth. It does the job and is comparatively easy on gas. And it’s almost as smooth as a V6. Which is precisely the point. One of the engineering drawbacks of a large displacement four cylinder is that the larger the engine, the greater the internal vibration. Toyota’ s solution is to fit engine counter-balancers that reduce the amount of unwanted vibes and even out the power delivery. Many manufacturers employ the same strategy and have been doing so for years. It’s proven and it works.

Toyota’s perennial best-seller - the Camry - also gets a bit of a tweak, without increasing its engine displacement. As of the 2010 model year, the four cylinder SE model is bumped up in power to 179 hp and delivers fuel economy better than the previous version. And raise your hand if you knew this: the Camry Hybrid outsells the Prius hybrid in Canada by almost two to one.

Doesn’t have the same credibility with cab drivers, though. Vancouver has more Prius taxi cabs than any other Canadian city, and the drivers love ‘em. Glen Beggs ("that’s eggs with a ‘b’....like bacon and eggs"), who drives for Yellow Cabs, tootles around the city in a 2004 Prius with some 300,000 klicks on the odometer, and his partner, Andrew Grant, owned a first generation 1999 Prius that racked up over a million kilometres before Toyota bought it back and gave Grant a new one, gratis. According to Beggs, the Prius cabs are virtually bulletproof, and even with hundreds of thousands of kilometres on them, still feel like new. "A Crown Vic is a piece of crap in comparison," he says. "By the time they get this many miles on ‘em, they’re bangin’ and rattlin’ down the road. The Prius is still tight and quiet."

Not perfect, though. "I’ve burned out three transmissions, replaced a couple of batteries and the push-button start button has broken three times. It cost me $384 to fix it every time," he says. "I think there’s still a couple of screws rattling around in there."

Perhaps the best thing about the Prius, at least as far as the cabbies are concerned, is the fact that you save money in fuel costs. Taxis spend a lot of time not going anywhere, and an idling automobile still costs money to run. Since the Prius’ internal combustion engine shuts off when the car isn’t moving forward, that means less fuel being consumed....up to $20 a shift, in some cases.

In keeping with its "More Power Less Fuel" theme, Toyota has boosted the size of the 2010 Prius’ engine; up to 1.8 litres from the previous 1.5 litres. This, while increasing horsepower and decreasing fuel consumption. It is now the most fuel-efficient car sold in Canada, returning some 3.8 L/100 km in fuel economy. Hybrid technology, once considered to be a temporary stopgap until fully electric cars were perfected, is clearly here to stay.