Toyota

The company was founded as a spinoff of Toyota Industries, a machine maker started by Sakichi Toyoda, Kiichiro's father; both companies are now part of the Toyota Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the world. While still a department of Toyota Industries, the company developed its first product, the Type A engine, in 1934, and its first passenger car, the Toyota AA, in 1936. In the 1960s Toyota took advantage of the rapidly growing Japanese economy to sell cars to a growing middle class, leading to the development of the Toyota Corolla, which became the world's all-time best-selling automobile. Toyota was the world's first automobile manufacturer to produce more than 10 million vehicles per year, a record set in 2012, when it also reported the production of its 200 millionth vehicle; by September 2023 total production reached 300 million vehicles. As of 2025, Toyota is one of the largest car manufacturers by market capitalisation, with a value of approximately US$259.7 billion.

Toyota was praised for being a leader in the development and sales of more fuel-efficient hybrid electric vehicles, starting with the original Toyota Prius in 1997, and now sells more than 40 hybrid vehicle models worldwide. More recently the company has been criticised for being slow to adopt all-electric vehicles, instead focusing on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles like the Toyota Mirai. As of 2025 Toyota produces vehicles under five brands: Century, Daihatsu, Hino, Lexus and the namesake Toyota. It also holds a 20% stake in Subaru Corporation, a 5.1% stake in Mazda, a 4.9% stake in Suzuki, a 4.6% stake in Isuzu, a 3.8% stake in Yamaha Motor Corporation, and a 2.8% stake in Panasonic.

In 1924 Sakichi Toyoda invented the Toyoda Model G Automatic loom. The principle of jidoka — the machine stops itself when a problem occurs — later became part of the Toyota Production System. In 1929 the patent for the automatic loom was sold to the British company Platt Brothers, generating the starting capital for automobile development.

Under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda, Toyoda Automatic Loom Works established an Automobile Division on 1 September 1933 and formally declared its intention to begin manufacturing automobiles on 29 January 1934. A prototype Type A engine was completed on 25 September 1934, with the company's first prototype sedan, the A1, completed the following May. However, the government strongly prioritised the development of trucks, so the company concentrated on the G1 truck, completed on 25 August 1935 and debuted on 21 November in Tokyo as the company's first production model. Modelled on a period Ford truck, the G1 chassis sold for ¥2,900 — ¥200 cheaper than the Ford truck — and a total of 379 were produced. In April 1936 Toyoda's first passenger car, the Model AA, was completed, priced at ¥3,350, ¥400 cheaper than Ford or GM cars; the company's plant at Kariya was completed in May, and in July the company filled its first export order, four G1 trucks to northeastern China.

Vehicles were originally sold under the name "Toyoda", from the family name of founder Kiichirō Toyoda. In September 1936 the company ran a public competition to design a new logo; of 27,000 entries, the winning entry was the three katakana letters for "Toyoda" in a circle. However, Rizaburo Toyoda preferred "Toyota" because it took eight brush strokes (a lucky number) to write, was visually simpler, and used a voiceless rather than voiced consonant. Since toyoda literally means "fertile rice paddies", changing the name also prevented association with old-fashioned farming. The newly formed word was trademarked and the company began trading on 28 August 1937 as the Toyota Motor Company Ltd., with Rizaburo Toyoda as first president and Kiichiro as vice-president. The founding date is celebrated every 3 November, to coincide with the inauguration of the Koromo Plant on 3 November 1938.

At the onset of World War II, Toyota almost exclusively produced standard-sized trucks for the Japanese Army. Toyota's plants were not spared in the war: on 14 August 1945, one day before Japan's surrender, the Koromo Plant was bombed by Allied forces. After the surrender the US-led occupying forces banned passenger car production in Japan, but allowed automakers to build trucks for civilian use; the US military also contracted with Toyota to repair its vehicles. Under the post-1947 "Reverse Course" policy, Japanese automakers were allowed to resume passenger car production in 1949, but an economic stabilisation program plunged the industry into a shortage of funds, and the Bank of Japan ultimately bailed out the company with demands for reforms.

As the 1950s began, Toyota emerged from its financial crisis a smaller company, closing factories and laying off workers. The Korean War broke out, and the US Army placed an order for 1,000 trucks, helping rapidly improve the company's performance. In 1950 company executives, including Kiichiro's cousin Eiji Toyoda, travelled to the United States, training at the Ford Motor Company and observing dozens of US manufacturers; the knowledge gained, along with what the company learned making looms, gave rise to The Toyota Way and the Toyota Production System.

Toyota began developing its first full-fledged passenger car, the Toyopet Crown, in 1952 and started production in 1955. The project had been championed for years by founder Kiichiro Toyoda, who died suddenly on 27 March 1952. The Crown went on sale in August 1955 to positive reviews. Toyota then began aggressively expanding into the export market — entering Saudi Arabia in 1955 with Land Cruisers and establishing its first production facility outside Japan, in Brazil, in 1958. Toyota entered the United States market in 1958 with the Toyopet Crown, but the car was a flop, found overpriced and underpowered because it had been designed for endurance on Japan's bad roads rather than high-speed performance; Crown exports to the US were suspended in the early 1960s in favour of the Land Cruiser and the Tiara. After Kiichiro's death his cousin Eiji Toyoda led the company for two decades.

At the start of the 1960s the Japanese economy was booming — the "Japanese economic miracle" — and rising incomes, plus heavy government investment in road infrastructure, let Toyota and other automakers offer affordable economy cars like the Toyota Corolla, which became the world's all-time best-selling automobile. Toyota found success in the US in 1965 with the Toyota Corona, redesigned for the American market, helping US sales triple to more than 20,000 units in 1966 and making Toyota the third-best-selling import brand in the US by 1967. Toyota's first US manufacturing investment came in 1972 through a deal with Atlas Fabricators to produce truck beds in Long Beach, avoiding the 25% "chicken tax"; Toyota purchased Atlas two years later.

In Southeast Asia in the early 1970s, Toyota partnered with Delta Motors Corporation in the Philippines and established Toyota Astra Motor as a joint venture with Astra International in Indonesia in 1971. For both countries Toyota developed a basic utility vehicle, launched as the Toyota Tamaraw in the Philippines in December 1976 and as the Toyota Kijang in June 1977. The energy crisis of the 1970s was a major turning point in the American auto industry: as consumers demanded high-quality, fuel-efficient small cars, foreign automakers like Toyota were well positioned, which — along with growing anti-Japanese sentiment — prompted the US Congress to consider import restrictions. During the 1960s Toyota also purchased stakes in other Japanese automakers, including Hino Motors and a 16.8% stake in Daihatsu, beginning long-standing partnerships.

After the successes of the 1970s and the threat of import restrictions, Toyota made additional investments in North America in the 1980s. In 1981 Japan agreed to voluntary export restraints, leading Toyota to establish assembly plants in North America, and the US government closed the loophole that had allowed Toyota to pay lower taxes by building truck beds in America. Also in 1981 Eiji Toyoda stepped down as president to become chairman, succeeded by Shoichiro Toyoda, who began merging Toyota's sales and production organisations; in 1982 the combined companies became the Toyota Motor Corporation.

In 1984, after talks with Ford broke down, the company struck a deal with General Motors to establish the NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.) joint-venture plant in Fremont, California. GM saw it as a way to access a quality small car and learn The Toyota Way and the Toyota Production System; for Toyota it provided a first North American manufacturing base. The first Toyota assembled in America, a white Corolla, rolled off the NUMMI line on 7 October 1986. Before the decade was out, Toyota introduced Lexus, a new division to market and service luxury vehicles internationally — developed in secret from August 1983 at a cost of over US$1 billion. The Lexus LS 400 flagship full-size sedan debuted in 1989 to strong sales and was largely responsible for the successful launch of the marque.

In the 1990s Toyota branched out from compact cars, adding larger and more luxurious vehicles including a full-sized pickup (the T100, and later the Tundra), several SUV lines, and the Camry Solara. December 1997 saw the introduction of the first-generation Toyota Prius, the first mass-produced gasoline-electric hybrid car, produced exclusively for the Japanese market for its first two years. Toyota set up Toyota Motor Europe Marketing and Engineering, then a UK base (TMUK). Toyota increased its Daihatsu shareholding to 33.4% in 1995 and 51.2% in 1998, becoming the majority shareholder. On 29 September 1999 the company decided to list itself on the New York and London Stock Exchanges.

In 2001 Toyota acquired its longtime partner Hino Motors. In 2002 Toyota entered Formula One competition and established a manufacturing joint venture in France with Citroën and Peugeot. A youth-oriented marque for North America, Scion, was introduced in 2003. Toyota was number one in global automobile sales for the first quarter of 2008, but was affected by the 2008 financial crisis, reporting its first annual loss in 70 years in December 2008 and closing all Japanese plants for 11 days in January 2009.

Between 2009 and 2011, under pressure from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Toyota conducted recalls of millions of vehicles after reports of unintended acceleration. The first recall, in November 2009, was to prevent a front driver's-side floor mat sliding into the foot-pedal well; the second, in January 2010, addressed possible mechanical sticking of the accelerator pedal. Approximately 9 million cars and trucks were recalled worldwide. NHTSA received reports of a total of 37 deaths allegedly related to unintended acceleration, although an exact number was never verified. Toyota faced nearly 100 lawsuits, spent more than US$1 billion to settle a class action over lost resale value, and agreed to pay a US$1.2 billion criminal penalty to the US government over accusations that it had intentionally hidden information about safety defects and made deceptive statements to protect its brand image — the largest penalty ever levied against a car company at the time. Amid the scandal, president Katsuaki Watanabe stepped down and was replaced by Akio Toyoda, grandson of founder Kiichiro Toyoda, on 23 June 2009 — the return of a Toyoda family member to the top role for the first time since 1999.

In 2011 Toyota suffered from a series of natural disasters: the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disrupted the supplier base, and severe flooding in Thailand affected production; Toyota is estimated to have lost production of 150,000 units to the tsunami and 240,000 units to the floods. In February 2014 Toyota announced it would cease manufacturing vehicles and engines in Australia by the end of 2017, citing the unfavourable Australian dollar, high local manufacturing costs, and intense competition; Ford and Holden followed suit.

By 2020 Toyota reclaimed its position as the largest automaker in the world, surpassing Volkswagen, selling 9.528 million vehicles globally despite an 11.3% pandemic-related drop. In April 2020 BYD and Toyota announced a joint venture, BYD Toyota EV Technology Co., Ltd. In December 2021 Toyota announced it would invest ¥8 trillion (about $70 billion) in electric vehicles by 2030, launch 30 EV models worldwide, and target sales of 3.5 million EVs in 2030. In January 2023 CEO and president Akio Toyoda announced he was stepping down, passing the position to Koji Sato (effective 1 April 2023), who had previously run Lexus. In October 2024 Toyota announced a return to Formula One after a 15-year absence, partnering with the US-based Haas team. In October 2025 Toyota announced it would spin off the Century nameplate into its own independent marque focused on low-production, hand-built ultra-luxury vehicles, and, with the unveiling of the GR GT, announced that Gazoo Racing would be spun off as its own independent brand, with rebranding expected to complete in January 2027.

Throughout the 2010s and 2020s Toyota was criticised for being slow to add battery-electric vehicles, having been publicly skeptical of them and instead focusing on hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell technology. In December 2020 CEO Akio Toyoda stated that electric cars were excessively "hyped" and that, in Japan, they would not necessarily reduce carbon dioxide emissions since electricity is mostly generated by burning coal and natural gas. In June 2021 Transport & Environment ranked Toyota as the least ready OEM to transition to battery-electric vehicles by 2030.

In 1950 Toyota was split into Toyota Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Sales Co.; the two merged in 1982. The list of former chairmen (per the corpus) runs: Rizaburo Toyoda (1937–1948), Taizo Ishida (1948–1952), Shoichi Saito (1952–1959), Masaya Hanai (1959–1982), Eiji Toyoda (1982–1994), Shoichiro Toyoda (1994–1999), Hiroshi Okuda (1999–2006), Fujio Cho (2006–2013), and Takeshi Uchiyamada (2013–2023). Former presidents: Rizaburo Toyoda (1937–1941), Kiichiro Toyoda (1941–1950), Taizo Ishida (1950–1961), Fukio Nakagawa (1961–1967), Eiji Toyoda (1967–1982), Shoichiro Toyoda (1982–1992), Tatsuro Toyoda (1992–1995), Hiroshi Okuda (1995–1999), Fujio Cho (1999–2005), Katsuaki Watanabe (2005–2009), Akio Toyoda (2009–2023), and Koji Sato (2023–2026). The board of directors is chaired by Akio Toyoda (since April 2023), with Koji Sato as vice chairman and Chief Industry Officer, and Kenta Kon as president and CEO (since April 2026).

Toyota officially lists approximately 70 models under its namesake brand. Passenger sedans range from the subcompact Yaris and compact Corolla to the mid-size Camry and full-size Crown. Toyota's SUV and crossover line-up grew quickly from the late 2010s, ranging from the subcompact Yaris Cross and C-HR up to the full-size Land Cruiser. Toyota first entered the pickup market in 1947 with the SB, followed by the RK (later the Stout) and, in 1968, the compact Hilux, which became famous for durability and reliability; the Tacoma, launched in 1995 and based on the Hilux, became the best-selling compact pickup in North America. The full-size T100 (1993) had disappointing sales and was replaced in 1999 by the larger Tundra. In the Japanese home market Toyota has two flagship models, the Crown and the Century (the Century brand was spun off in October 2025). The Toyota Coaster minibus, introduced in 1969, seats 17 passengers and is widely used worldwide.

Toyota is the world's leader in sales of hybrid electric vehicles and the first to mass-produce them, beginning with the XW10 Toyota Prius in 1997; its hybrid technology is called Hybrid Synergy Drive. As of January 2020 Toyota sold 44 Toyota and Lexus hybrid models in over 90 countries, having sold over 15 million hybrid vehicles since 1997. In hydrogen fuel cells, Toyota began a development program in 2002 with the Toyota FCHV and unveiled the Toyota Mirai ("future") at the November 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show, with US retail sales starting in August 2015; in 2015 Toyota released 5,600 patents for free use until 2020 to promote hydrogen development. In battery-electric vehicles, Toyota built the first-generation RAV4 EV as a compliance car in the 1990s, a second-generation RAV4 EV with Tesla in 2010–2014, and announced the bZ4X — its first vehicle on a dedicated electric platform (e-TNGA) — in April 2021. Toyota is also developing solid-state batteries in partnership with Panasonic. Although it unveiled its first self-driving test vehicle in 2017 and developed "Chauffeur" and "Guardian" technologies, neither has been introduced into production vehicles; since February 2021 Toyota has been building the "Woven City" research metropolis at the foot of Mount Fuji.

Toyota has been involved in many global motorsports series under both the Toyota and Lexus brands. Toyota Gazoo Racing (GR) is Toyota's performance brand: Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, based in Cologne, Germany, competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship, while the Finland-based Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT participates in the FIA World Rally Championship, and Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa competes in the Dakar Rally. Between 2002 and 2009 the Toyota Racing team competed in Formula One. Toyota won the highest class of the 24 Hours of Le Mans five consecutive times from 2018 to 2022, competing with the Toyota TS050 Hybrid and Toyota GR010 Hybrid. Toyota Racing Development USA participates in NASCAR, NHRA, Indy Racing League and Formula Drift.

The Toyota Way is a set of principles underlying the company's approach to management and production. The company began developing its corporate philosophy in 1948 and officially defined the Toyota Way in 2001, summarising it under two pillars: continuous improvement (with the principles of challenge, kaizen, and genchi genbutsu — "go and see") and respect for people (respect and teamwork). In 2004 Dr. Jeffrey Liker, a University of Michigan professor, published The Toyota Way, calling it "a system designed to provide the tools for people to continually improve their work" and defining 14 principles in four themes. The Toyota Production System, an early pioneer of lean manufacturing, is defined under two pillars: just-in-time (make only what is needed, when it is needed, in the amount needed) and jidoka (automation with a human touch). Its origin is in dispute, with three stories: study of the Piggly-Wiggly grocery store just-in-time distribution system during a 1950 Ford training trip, the writings of W. Edwards Deming, and a WWII US government training program (Training Within Industry).

The corpus records several controversies. In November 2016 Toyota agreed to pay $3.4 billion to settle allegations that roughly 1.5 million Tacoma, Tundra and Sequoia vehicles had frames prone to corrosion. Two deaths attributed to overwork are recorded: quality control manager Kenichi Uchino (aged 30) in February 2002, and an unnamed Camry Hybrid chief engineer (aged 45) in January 2006. In 2003 Toyota was fined $34 million for violating the US Clean Air Act, and in January 2021 was fined $180 million for delays in reporting emissions-related defects to the EPA. Toyota was also impacted by the Takata airbag recalls and a June 2010 Chinese labour strike at Tianjin Toyoda Gosei. In its marketing Toyota referred to non-plug-in hybrids as "self-charging hybrid" vehicles, prompting criticism as misleading; Norway's Consumer Authority banned the adverts outright in 2020. Beginning in April 2023, Toyota subsidiary Daihatsu was revealed to have rigged some models to perform better in crash tests than production cars; on 20 December 2023 Daihatsu halted shipments of 64 models, and on 29 January 2024 Koji Sato publicly apologised to customers, dealers and suppliers.

Toyota is headquartered in the city of Toyota, named Koromo until 1951 when it changed its name to match the automaker; it is located in Aichi Prefecture. The main headquarters is a four-story building described in the corpus as "modest", surrounded by the 14-story Toyota Technical Center and the Honsha plant (established 1938). Toyota and its Toyota Group affiliates operate 17 manufacturing facilities in Aichi Prefecture and 32 plants in Japan. As of 2024 Toyota was the world's largest car company, with revenues exceeding US$400 billion; for fiscal year 2024 it reported earnings of ¥4.9 trillion on annual revenue of ¥45.1 trillion, an increase of 21.4% over the previous cycle. In March 2023 the largest shareholders were The Master Trust Bank of Japan (14.05%), Toyota Industries Corporation (8.79%), and Custody Bank of Japan (6.70%).

Outside Japan, Toyota has factories in most parts of the world, including Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Toyota Motor Europe is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, with operations beginning in 1963. Toyota Motor North America is headquartered in Plano, Texas. Toyota South Africa Motors, founded in 1961, has been South Africa's best-selling passenger vehicle brand for almost 50 years and held around 26% of the total passenger vehicle market share in South Africa as of 2026.

Toyota is a minority shareholder in Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation and contracted with Scaled Composites to produce a proof-of-concept aircraft, the TAA-1, in 2002. In 1997 it created "Toyota Marine", building private motorboats sold only in Japan (the Toyota Ponam series). The Toyota Foundation, a grant-making foundation, was established in 1974. Toyota has developed robots for elderly care, manufacturing and entertainment, including a trumpet-playing robot (2004), the Kirobo "robotic astronaut", and the T-HR3 humanoid robot (2017). Aisin, another Toyota Group company, uses the same Toyota wordmark to market home-use sewing machines. Toyota states it is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and to reducing overall carbon emissions by 90% by 2050 compared to 2010 levels, through its "Global Environmental Challenge 2050" program.

The original logo was a heavily stylised version of the katakana characters for Toyota. As the company expanded internationally in the late 1950s, the katakana logo was supplemented by "TOYOTA" wordmarks in all capitals. Toyota introduced a worldwide logo in October 1989 to commemorate the company's 50th year and to differentiate it from the newly released Lexus brand; it consists of three ovals combining to form the letter "T". In countries using traditional Chinese characters Toyota is known as "豐田", and in countries using simplified Chinese characters as "丰田" — the same characters as the founding family's name "Toyoda" in Japanese. On 15 July 2015 the company was delegated its own generic top-level domain, .toyota.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.