Toyota Motor Corporation

JAPANESE CORPORATION

Alternative Title: Toyota Jidosha KK

WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Toyota Motor Corporation

JAPANESE CORPORATION

The Scion IQ concept car, a micro compact car produced by Toyota, as unveiled at the 2009 New York
International Auto Show.

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Ohno Taiichi

AREAS OF INVOLVEMENT

Automobile

Automotive industry

Manufacturing

Motor vehicle

Toyota Motor Corporation, Japanese Toyota Jidōsha KK, Japanese parent company of the Toyota Group.
It became the largest automobile manufacturer in the world for the first time in 2008. Most of its nearly
600 subsidiary companies are involved in the production of automobiles, automobile parts, and
commercial and industrial vehicles. Headquarters are in Toyota City, an industrial city east of Nagoya,
Japan.

Toyota Motor Corporation began in 1933 as a division of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd. (later
Toyota Industries Corporation, now a subsidiary), a Japanese manufacturer founded by Toyoda Sakichi.
Its first production car, the Model AA sedan, was released in 1936. The following year the division was
incorporated as the Toyota Motor Company, Ltd., an automotive spin-off headed by Toyoda Kiichiro,
Sakichi’s son. Toyota subsequently established several related companies, including Toyoda Machine
Works, Ltd. (1941), and Toyota Auto Body, Ltd. (1945). However, faced with wrecked facilities and a
chaotic economy in the aftermath of World War II, the company was forced to temporarily suspend its
automotive production.

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By the 1950s Toyota’s automobile production factories were back in operation, and to gain
competitiveness the company began a careful study of American automobile manufacturers, owing to
perceived U.S. technical and economic superiority. Toyota executives toured the production facilities of
corporations, including the Ford Motor Company, to observe the latest automobile manufacturing
technology and in turn implemented it in their own facilities, yielding a nearly immediate increase in
efficiency. In 1957 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., was established, and the following year the company
released the Toyopet sedan, its first model to be marketed in the United States; it was poorly received
because of its high price and lack of horsepower. The Land Cruiser, a 4 × 4 utility vehicle released in 1958,
was more successful. In 1965 the Toyopet, completely redesigned for American drivers, was re-released
as the Toyota Corona, marking the company’s first major success in the United States.

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During the 1960s and ’70s the company expanded at a rapid rate and began exporting large numbers of
automobiles to foreign markets. Toyota acquired such companies as Hino Motors, Ltd. (1966), a
manufacturer of buses and large trucks; Nippondenso Company, Ltd., a maker of electrical auto
components; and Daihitsu Motor Company, Ltd. (1967). For several decades Toyota was Japan’s largest
automobile manufacturer. The company continued to thrive in the American market as well, gaining a
reputation for its low-cost, fuel-efficient, and reliable vehicles such as the Corolla, which was released in
the United States in 1968.

The company took its present name in 1982, when Toyota Motor Company was merged with Toyota
Motor Sales Company, Ltd. Two years later Toyota partnered with General Motors Corporation in the
creation of New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., a dual-brand manufacturing plant in California,
where Toyota began U.S. production in 1986.
The company experienced significant growth well into the 21st century, with innovations such as its
luxury brand, Lexus (1989), and the first mass-produced hybrid-powered vehicle in the world, the Prius
(1997). In 1999 Toyota was listed on both the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.
The company continued to expand to new markets—specifically targeting younger buyers with the
launch of its Scion brand (2003) and unveiling the world’s first luxury hybrid vehicle, the Lexus RX 400h
(2005). However, the company subsequently faced significant financial challenges: plummeting sales
stemming from the global financial crisis of 2008 as well as an international safety recall of more than
eight million vehicles in 2010, which temporarily halted the production and sales of several of its top
models. Beginning in 2014, millions of vehicles manufactured by Toyota and several other car companies
were recalled by regulators in the United States because of potentially malfunctioning airbags produced
by the Japanese automotive-parts supplier Takata. The recall was “the largest and most complex safety
recall in U.S. history,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

2006 Toyota PriusIn 1997 Toyota introduced the Prius, an electric-gasoline hybrid vehicle.

2006 Toyota PriusIn 1997 Toyota introduced the Prius, an electric-gasoline hybrid vehicle.

Toyota Motor Sales, USA

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Today Toyota has assembly plants and distributors in many countries. In addition to automotive
products, its subsidiaries manufacture rubber and cork materials, steel, synthetic resins, automatic
looms, and cotton and woolen goods. Others deal in real estate, prefabricated housing units, and the
import and export of raw materials.