Toyota

By 1947, there was an emerging global Cold War between the Soviet Union and the U.S., who had been allies in World War II. U.S. priorities shifted (the "Reverse Course") from punishing and reforming Japan to ensuring internal political stability, rebuilding the economy, and, to an extent, remilitarizing Japan. Under these new policies, in 1949, Japanese automakers were allowed to resume passenger car production, but at the same time, a new economic stabilization program to control inflation plunged the automotive industry into a serious shortage of funds, while many truck owners defaulted on their loans. Ultimately, the Bank of Japan, the central bank of the country, bailed out the company, with demands that the company institute reforms.

1950s

As the 1950s began, Toyota emerged from its financial crisis a smaller company, closing factories and laying off workers. Meanwhile, the Korean War broke out, and being located so close to the battlefront, the U.S. Army placed an order for 1,000 trucks from Toyota. The order helped to rapidly improve the struggling company's business performance. In 1950, company executives, including Kiichiro's cousin Eiji Toyoda, took a trip to the United States where they trained at the Ford Motor Company and observed the operations of dozens of U.S. manufacturers. The knowledge they gained during the trip, along with what the company learned making looms, gave rise to The Toyota Way (a management philosophy) and the Toyota Production System (a lean manufacturing practice) that transformed the company into a leader in the manufacturing industry.

Toyota started developing its first full-fledged passenger car, the Toyopet Crown, in 1952 and started production in 1955. Prior to the Crown, Toyota had been outsourcing the design and manufacturing of auto bodies, which were then mounted on truck frames made by Toyota. The project was a major test for Toyota, who would need to build bodies and develop a new chassis that would be comfortable, but still stand up to the muddy, slow, unpaved roads common in Japan at the time. The project had been championed for many years by founder Kiichiro Toyoda, who died suddenly on March 27, 1952. The first prototypes were completed in June 1953 and began extensive testing, before the Crown went on sale in August 1955. The car was met with positive reviews from around the world.

After the introduction of the Crown, Toyota began aggressively expanding into the export market; the company entered Saudi Arabia for the first time in 1955 with Land Cruisers, following an agreement reached with Abdul Latif Jameel (founder of his company of the same name); Toyota also brought Land Cruisers into neighboring Yemen in 1956. In 1958, Toyota established a production facility in Brazil, the company's first outside of Japan.

In 1957, the Corona was released as a smaller alternative to the Crown. Following high Corona sales, and Eiji's suggestion, a new factory was built. This was the Motomachi factory. The building had a capacity of 10,000 units per month. The Motomachi Plant was completed in 1959.

Toyota entered the United States market in 1958, attempting to sell the Toyopet Crown. The company faced problems almost immediately. The company had to confront for the first time how its name sounded to native speakers of the English language; namely, "Toyota" has the English word "toy" in its first syllable. Toyota Motor Sales, USA's first sales administrator James F. McGraw bluntly told his new Japanese supervisors after joining the company in 1959: "'Toy' sounds like a toy and toys break". The Crown was a flop in the U.S. market, with buyers finding it overpriced and underpowered (because it was designed for endurance on the bad roads of Japan, not high-speed performance on the good roads of America). In response, exports of the Crown to the United States were suspended in the early 1960s in favor of the Land Cruiser and the Tiara.

After Kiichiro's death, his cousin Eiji Toyoda led the company for the two decades. Eiji helped establish the company's first plant independent from the Loom Works plant.

1960s–1970s

At the start of the 1960s, the Japanese economy was booming, a period that came to be known as the Japanese economic miracle. As the economy grew, so did the income of everyday people, who now could afford to purchase a vehicle. At the same time, the Japanese government heavily invested in improving road infrastructure. To take advantage of the moment, Toyota and other automakers started offering affordable economy cars like the Toyota Corolla, which became the world's all-time best-selling automobile.

Toyota also found success in the United States in 1965 with the Toyota Corona compact car, which was redesigned specifically for the American market with a more powerful engine. The Corona helped increase U.S. sales of Toyota vehicles to more than 20,000 units in 1966 (a threefold increase) and helped the company become the third-best-selling import brand in the United States by 1967. Toyota's first manufacturing investment in the United States came in 1972 when the company struck a deal with Atlas Fabricators, to produce truck beds in Long Beach, in an effort to avoid the 25% "chicken tax" on imported light trucks. By importing the truck as an incomplete chassis cab (the truck without a bed), the vehicle only faced a 4% tariff. Once in the United States, Atlas would build the truck beds and attach them to the trucks. The partnership was successful and two years later, Toyota purchased Atlas.

In Southeast Asia, Toyota made efforts to establish domestic production in the Philippines and Indonesia in early 1970s. In the Philippines, it partnered with local company Delta Motors Corporation. Toyota assisted Delta Motors with capital procurement and technology transfers. In 1973, Delta Motors commenced operations at a new plant, beginning local production of engine blocks for the Toyota Corona 12R engine and other parts. In Indonesia, Toyota established Toyota Astra Motor as a joint venture with local partner Astra International in 1971, and conducted significant retooling at the PT Gaya Motor assembly plant. The plant began assembling various models, including the Toyota Corona, Toyota Land Cruiser, large trucks, and the Toyota Corolla, with production surpassing 10,000 vehicles by 1973. For both countries, Toyota developed a basic utility vehicle (BUV) with the local partners to meet local needs and support technology transfers, in response to domestic production policies in Asia. The first prototype of the BUV was completed in January 1975. The BUV was launched as the Toyota Tamaraw in the Philippines in December 1976, and as the Toyota Kijang in June 1977. The vehicle was well received in both countries.

The energy crisis of the 1970s was a major turning point in the American auto industry. Before the crisis, large and heavy vehicles with powerful but inefficient engines were common. But in the years after, consumers started demanding high-quality and fuel-efficient small cars. Domestic automakers, in the midst of their malaise era, struggled to build these cars profitably, but foreign automakers like Toyota were well positioned. This, along with growing anti-Japanese sentiment, prompted the U.S. Congress to consider import restrictions to protect the domestic auto industry.

The 1960s also saw the slight opening of the Japanese auto market to foreign companies. In an effort to strengthen Japan's auto industry ahead of the market opening, Toyota purchased stakes in other Japanese automakers. That included a stake in Hino Motors, a manufacturer of large commercial trucks, buses and diesel engines, along with a 16.8 percent stake in Daihatsu, a manufacturer of kei cars, the smallest highway-legal passenger vehicles sold in Japan. That began what became a long-standing partnership between Toyota and the two companies.

1980s

After the successes of the 1970s, and the threats of import restrictions, Toyota started making additional investments in the North American market in the 1980s. In 1981, Japan agreed to voluntary export restraints, which limited the number of vehicles the nation would send to the United States each year, leading Toyota to establish assembly plants in North America. The U.S. government also closed the loophole that allowed Toyota to pay lower taxes by building truck beds in America.

Also in 1981, Eiji Toyoda stepped down as president and assumed the title of chairman. He was succeeded as president by Shoichiro Toyoda, the son of the company's founder. Within months, Shoichiro started to merge Toyota's sales and production organizations, and in 1982 the combined companies became the Toyota Motor Corporation. The two groups were described as "oil and water" and it took years of leadership from Shoichiro to successfully combine them into one organization.

In Japan, Toyota offered mid-level luxury cars that were a class below the Crown and Century and offered hardtop coupes and sedans. The Supra, Mark II, Cresta and Chaser offered several trim packages with different engine displacements to provide buyers with annual road tax advantages. At the same time, sports cars like Celica, Corolla Levin and Sprinter Trueno sold very well.

Efforts to open a Toyota assembly plant in the United States started in 1980, with the company proposing a joint-venture with the Ford Motor Company. Those talks broke down in July 1981. Eventually in 1984, the company struck a deal with General Motors (GM) to establish a joint-venture vehicle manufacturing plant called NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.) in Fremont, California. GM saw the joint venture as a way to get access to a quality small car and an opportunity to learn about The Toyota Way and the Toyota Production System. For Toyota, the factory gave the company its first manufacturing base in North America allowing it to avoid any future tariffs on imported vehicles and saw GM as a partner who could show it how to navigate the American labor environment. The plant would be led by Tatsuro Toyoda, the younger brother of company president Shoichiro Toyoda. The first Toyota assembled in America, a white Corolla, rolled off the line at NUMMI on October 7, 1986.

Toyota received its first Japanese Quality Control Award at the start of the 1980s and began participating in a wide variety of motorsports. Conservative Toyota held on to rear-wheel-drive designs for longer than most; while a clear first in overall production it was only third in production of front-wheel-drive cars in 1983, behind Nissan and Honda. In part due to this, Nissan's Sunny managed to squeeze by the Corolla in numbers built that year.

Before the decade was out, Toyota introduced Lexus, a new division that was formed to market and service luxury vehicles in international markets. Prior to the debut of Lexus, Toyota's two existing flagship models, the Crown and Century, both catered exclusively for the Japanese market and had little global appeal that could compete with international luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Jaguar. The company had been developing the brand and vehicles in secret since August 1983, at a cost of over US$1 billion. The LS 400 flagship full-size sedan debuted in 1989 to strong sales, and was largely responsible for the successful launch of the Lexus marque.

1990s

In the 1990s, Toyota began to branch out from producing mostly compact cars by adding many larger and more luxurious vehicles to its lineup, including a full-sized pickup, the T100 (and later the Tundra), several lines of SUVs, a sport version of the Camry, known as the Camry Solara. They would also launch newer iterations of its sports cars, namely the MR2, Celica, and Supra during this era.

In Japan, Toyota continued to cater to the growing demand for mid-level luxury cars and offered several conventional and pillared hardtops sedans at its Japanese dealership network. The Soarer, Mark II, Cresta, Chaser, Corona EXiV, and Carina ED found many buyers. At the same time, sports cars like the Supra, Celica, MR2, Corolla Levin, Sprinter Trueno, and even the subcompact Starlet GT reflected a time of prosperity.

December 1997 saw the introduction of the first-generation Toyota Prius, the first mass-produced gasoline-electric hybrid car. The vehicle would be produced exclusively for the Japanese market for the first two years.

With a major presence in Europe, due to the success of Toyota Team Europe in motorsport, the corporation decided to set up Toyota Motor Europe Marketing and Engineering, TMME, to help market vehicles in the continent. Two years later, Toyota set up a base in the United Kingdom, TMUK, as the company's cars had become very popular among British drivers. Bases in Indiana, Virginia, and Tianjin were also set up.

Toyota also increased its ownership of Daihatsu during this period. In 1995, Toyota increased its shareholding in the company to 33.4 percent, giving Toyota the ability to veto shareholder resolutions at the annual meeting. In 1998, Toyota increased its holding in the company to 51.2 percent, becoming the majority shareholder.

On September 29, 1999, the company decided to list itself on the New York and London Stock Exchanges.

The later half of the 1990s would also see the Toyoda brothers step back from the company their father had founded. In 1992, Shoichiro Toyoda would shift to become chairman, allowing his brother Tatsuro to become president, a job he held until his retirement in 1995. Shoichiro would step down as chairman in 1999. Both would retain honorary advisory roles in the company. Hiroshi Okuda would lead the company as president from 1995 until 1999 when he became chairman and the President's office would be filled by Fujio Cho.

2000s

In August 2000, exports began of the Prius. In 2001, Toyota acquired its long time partner, truck and bus manufacturer Hino Motors. In 2002, Toyota entered Formula One competition and established a manufacturing joint venture in France with French automakers Citroën and Peugeot. A youth-oriented marque for North America, Scion, was introduced in 2003. Toyota ranked eighth on Forbes 2000 list of the world's leading companies for the year 2005. Also in 2005, Fujio Cho would shift to become chairman of Toyota and would be replaced as president by Katsuaki Watanabe.

In 2007, Toyota released an update of its full-sized truck, the Tundra, produced in two American factories, one in Texas and one in Indiana. Motor Trend named the 2007 Toyota Camry "Car of the Year" for 2007. It also began the construction of two new factories, one in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada, and the other in Blue Springs, Mississippi, USA.

The company was number one in global automobile sales for the first quarter of 2008.

Toyota was affected by the 2008 financial crisis and in December 2008 it had its first annual loss in 70 years. In January 2009, it announced the closure of all of its Japanese plants for 11 days to reduce output and stocks of unsold vehicles.

In October 2009, Toyota announced that it was establishing an office in South Korea and launched the Camry sedan, Camry hybrid, Prius and the RAV4 during the launching event at the Grand Hyatt Seoul.

In North America, the Hilux became a major model for the company, leading the company to launch the Tacoma in 1995. The Tacoma was based on the Hilux, but with a design intended to better suit the needs of North American consumers who often use pickup trucks as personal vehicles. The design was a success and the Tacoma became the best-selling compact pickup truck in North America.

After the success of its compact Hilux pickups in North America, Toyota decided to enter the full-size pickup truck market, which was traditionally dominated by domestic automakers. The company introduced the T100 for the 1993 US model year. The T100 had a full-size 8-foot (2.4 m) long bed, but suspension and engine characteristics were similar to that of a compact pickup. Sales were disappointing and the T100 was criticized for having a small V6 engine (especially compared to the V8 engines common in American full-size trucks), lacking an extended-cab version, being too small, and too expensive (because of the 25% tariff on imported trucks). In 1995, Toyota added the more powerful V6 engine from the new Tacoma to the T100 and also added an extended cab version. In 1999, Toyota replaced the T100 with the larger Tundra, which would be built in the US with a V8 engine and styling that more closely matched other American full-size trucks.

Luxury vehicles

In the Japanese home market, Toyota has two flagship models: the Crown premium sedans and crossover SUVs and the Century limousine and SUV.

In the 1980s, Toyota wanted to expand its luxury car offerings but realized that existing Japanese-market flagship models had little global appeal and could not compete with established brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Jaguar or the Acura and Infiniti marquees being launched by Japanese competitors.

Before the decade was out, Toyota introduced Lexus, a new division that was formed to market and service luxury vehicles in markets outside of Japan. The company developed the brand and its vehicles in secret starting in August 1983, at a cost of over US$1 billion. The Lexus LS flagship full-size sedan debuted in 1989 to strong sales, and was largely responsible for the successful launch of the Lexus marque. Subsequently, the division added sedan, coupé, convertible and SUV models.

The Lexus brand was introduced to the Japanese market in 2005, previously all vehicles marketed internationally as Lexus from 1989 to 2005 were released in Japan under the Toyota marque.

The Century brand was spun off in October 2025.

Buses

The Toyota Coaster is a minibus introduced in 1969 that seats 17 passengers. The Coaster is widely used in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia, but also in the developing world for minibus operators in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, the Caribbean, and South America to operate as public transportation. The Toyota HiAce is also sometimes used as a minibus.

Toyota also released its first fuel-cell bus in Japan, The Toyota Sora was introduced in 2018.

Technology

Hybrid electric vehicles

Toyota is the world's leader in sales of hybrid electric vehicles, one of the largest companies to encourage the mass-market adoption of hybrid vehicles across the globe, and the first to commercially mass-produce and sell such vehicles, with the introduction of the XW10 Toyota Prius in 1997. The company's hybrid technology is called Hybrid Synergy Drive, and it was later applied to many vehicles in Toyota's product lineup, starting first with the Camry and the technology was also brought to the luxury Lexus division.

As of January 2020, Toyota Motor Corporation sells 44 Toyota and Lexus hybrid passenger car models in over 90 countries and regions around the world, and the carmaker has sold over 15 million hybrid vehicles since 1997. The Prius family is the world's top-selling hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle nameplate with almost 4 million units sold worldwide as of January 2017.

Hydrogen fuel-cell

In 2002, Toyota began a development and demonstration program to test the Toyota FCHV, a hybrid hydrogen fuel cell vehicle based on the Toyota Highlander production SUV. Toyota also built a FCHV bus based on the Hino Blue Ribbon City low-floor bus. Toyota has built several prototypes/concepts of the FCHV since 1997, including the Toyota FCHV-1, FCHV-2, FCHV-3, FCHV-4, and Toyota FCHV-adv. The Toyota FCV-R fuel cell concept car was unveiled at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show. The FCV-R sedan seats four and has a fuel cell stack including a 70 MPa high-pressure hydrogen tank, which can deliver a range of 435 mi (700 km) under the Japanese JC08 test cycle. Toyota said the car was planned for launch in about 2015.

In August 2012, Toyota announced its plans to start retail sales of a hydrogen fuel-cell sedan in California in 2015. Toyota expected to become a leader in this technology. The prototype of its first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle will be exhibited at the November 2013 Tokyo Motor Show, and in the United States at the January 2014 Consumer Electronics Show.

Toyota's first hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles to be sold commercially, the Toyota Mirai (Japanese for "future"), was unveiled at the November 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show. In January 2015, it was announced that production of the Mirai fuel cell vehicle would increase from 700 units in 2015 to approximately 2,000 in 2016 and 3,000 in 2017. Sales in Japan began in December 2014. Retail sales in the U.S. began in August 2015, initially only in California. The market release in Europe was slated for September 2015, and initially will be available only in the UK, Germany, and Denmark, followed by other countries in 2017.

In 2015, Toyota released 5,600 patents for free use until 2020, hoping to promote global development of hydrogen fuel-cell technology.

Since the mid-2010s, Toyota has increased its focus on building hydrogen powered trucks. It first showcased a heavy-duty semi-truck tractor in 2017 and in 2023 announced a kit to convert existing diesel-powered truck engines to use hydrogen. In late 2022, the company signed an £11.3 million government deal with the UK's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to help it develop a hydrogen-powered Hilux pickup truck.

Plug-in hybrids

The Prius Plug-In Hybrid Concept was exhibited in late 2009, and shortly after, a global demonstration program involving 600 pre-production test cars began. The vehicles were leased to fleet and government customers, and were equipped with data tracking devices to allow Toyota to monitor the car's performance. The vehicle was based on the third-generation Toyota Prius and outfitted with two additional lithium-ion batteries beyond the normal hybrid battery pack. The additional batteries were used to operate the car with minimal use of the internal combustion engine until they are depleted, at which point they are disengaged from the system. They are not used in tandem with the main hybrid battery pack.

After the conclusion of the demonstration program, the production version of the Prius Plug-in Hybrid was unveiled in September 2011. The production Prius Plug-in had a maximum electric-only speed of 100 km/h (62 mph), and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rated the vehicle as having a range of 18 kilometres (11 mi) in blended mode (mostly electric, but supplemented by the internal combustion engine). Toyota ultimately only did a small production run with 75,400 vehicles being produced between 2012 and 2016.

The second-generation Prius Plug-in (renamed the Prius Prime in the US) was unveiled in early 2016. Unlike the prior generation, where the plug-in battery was limited by being added to the existing Prius, this model would be developed in tandem with the fourth-generation Prius, allowing Toyota to increase the range to 40 kilometres (25 mi), with a top speed of 135 km/h (84 mph), without needing the assistance of the internal combustion engine. The second-generation Prius Plug-in went on sale starting in late 2016, with Toyota expecting to sell up to 60,000 units globally per year.

A second plug-in hybrid model, the Toyota RAV4 PHV (RAV4 Prime in the US) was unveiled in December 2019. The vehicle has an EPA-estimated 68 kilometres (42 mi) of all-electric range and generates a combined 225 kilowatts (302 hp), enabling it to be Toyota's second fastest car currently in production (behind the GR Supra 3.0 sports car). Sales started in mid-2020.

Battery electric vehicles

As of 2023, only a small proportion of the vehicles the company sells are of battery electric, which has prompted criticism by some environmental and public interest groups. The company plans to increase its sales of electric vehicles to 3.5 million per year by 2030. However, the company has stated that it believes other technologies, including hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, will continue to play a role in the future of the company.

In late 2012, Toyota announced that it would back away from fully electric vehicles, after producing less than 5,000. At the time, the company's vice chairman, Takeshi Uchiyamada, said: "The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society's needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge."

In December 2020, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda stated that electric cars are 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 the country. He also said that the infrastructure needed for Japan to switch fully to EVs would cost between $135 billion and $358 billion and switching only to EVs would cost millions of jobs and make cars less affordable.

In a session in parallel with the G-7 Meeting 2023 May, Akio Toyoda said that battery electric vehicles are not solely the future, instead offering a mix of battery electric, internal combustion engine-equipped and hydrogen cars.

Toyota has been criticized for being slow to add battery electric vehicles to its lineup. It has been publicly skeptical of battery-electric vehicles, instead focusing on hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and actively lobbying against government mandates to transition to zero-emissions vehicles.

In June 2021, Transport & Environment ranked Toyota as the least ready OEM to transition to battery electric vehicles by 2030, stating: "Toyota has not set a target for 2030 and it plans to produce just 10% BEVs in 2025. It is expected to rely on polluting hybrid technologies."

History of Toyota BEVs

Toyota created the first generation Toyota RAV4 EV (Electric Vehicle) as a compliance car after the California Air Resources Board mandated in the late 1990s that every automaker offer a zero-emissions vehicle. A total of 1,484 were leased and/or sold in California from 1997 to 2003, when the state dropped its mandate under legal pressure from lawsuits filed by automakers.

A second generation of the RAV4 EV was developed in 2010 as part of a deal with Tesla. The production version was unveiled in August 2012, using battery pack, electronics and powertrain components from Tesla. The RAV4 EV had a limited production run with just under 3,000 vehicles being produced, before it was discontinued in 2014. According to Bloomberg News, the partnership between Tesla and Toyota was "marred by clashes between engineers".

Starting in 2009, Toyota introduced three generations of concept electric vehicles called the FT-EV built on a modified Toyota iQ platform. In late-2012, the company announced plans to build a production version of the car called the Toyota iQ EV (Scion iQ EV in the US, Toyota eQ in Japan), but ultimately production was cut back to 100 cars for special fleet use in Japan and the U.S. only.

A shift in Toyota's formerly battery-agnostic posture could be seen as early as 2016, when Toyota's CFO Takahiko Ijichi "sent a strong signal that Toyota soon plans to jump on the battery bandwagon and make electric cars despite expressing skeptical views about their range and charging times," as the Wall Street Journal wrote. Toyota said it would make and sell battery-electric vehicles if and where regulations and markets demand.

A year later, Toyota outlined its electric-vehicle plans for between 2020 and 2030 to the press in Tokyo, saying it would introduce "more than 10" battery-electric vehicles worldwide by the early 2020s, beginning in China, and later in Japan, Europe, the US and India.

In April 2019, Toyota introduced the C-HR EV, its first mass-produced pure electric model in China along with an identical twin called the IZOA EV. It went on sale in April 2020 and May 2020 respectively. Nikkei reported in October 2020 that Toyota had only sold less than 2,000 units in the first eight months of the year.

Toyota introduced the C+pod in late 2020, a 2-seater kei car with an estimated range of 100 kilometres (62 mi) and a top speed of 60 kilometres per hour (37 mph).

In April 2021, Toyota revealed the bZ4X, an electric crossover SUV that was the first vehicle built on their dedicated electric platform named e-TNGA. It went on sale in mid-2022. It was the first model of the bZ ("beyond Zero") series of battery electric vehicles. The company has also stated that there will be seven "bZ" models to be launched globally out of 15 BEV models by 2025.

In December 2021, Toyota announced in Tokyo plans for 30 battery-electric models by 2030, to sell 3.5 million BEVs per year by that date, and that its premium-brand Lexus will be 100% battery-operated by 2030 in North America, Europe, and China. The company announced investments of $70 billion into the company's electrification.

Solid state batteries

Toyota has been developing solid-state batteries in partnership with Panasonic, in which the company has more than a thousand patents covering solid-state batteries by late 2020. The technology has been implemented on the Toyota LQ concept. Toyota hopes the technology could increase efficiency of battery electric vehicles by 30 percent, which in turn would reduce battery costs by the same amount.

Autonomous vehicles

Toyota is also regarded as lagging when it comes to developing smart car technology. Although the company unveiled its first self-driving test vehicle in 2017, and has been developing its own self-driving technology named "Chauffeur" (intended for full self-driving) and "Guardian" (a driver assist system), neither of these has been introduced into any production vehicles.

The company had set up a large research and development operation by 2018, spending almost US$4 billion to start an autonomous vehicle research institute in California's Silicon Valley and another ¥300 billion on a similar research institute in Tokyo that would partner with fellow Toyota Group companies and automotive suppliers Aisin Seiki and Denso.

Toyota has also been collaborating with autonomous vehicle technology developers and, in some cases, purchasing the companies. Toyota has acquired the autonomous vehicle division of ride-hailing service Lyft for $550 million, invested a total of US$1 billion in competing ride-hailing service Uber's self-driving vehicle division, invested $400 million in autonomous vehicle technology company Pony.ai, and announced a partnership with Chinese electronics e-commerce company Cogobuy to build a "Smart Car Ecosystem."

In December 2020, Toyota showcased the 20-passenger "e-Palette" shared autonomous vehicle, which saw its first major use at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Toyota has announced it intends to have the vehicle available for commercial applications before 2025.

Since February 2021, Toyota has been building the "Woven City" which it calls a "175-acre high tech, sensor-laden metropolis" at the foot of Mount Fuji. When completed in 2024, the Woven City will be used to run tests on autonomous vehicles for deliveries, transport and mobile shops, with the city's residents participating in the living laboratory experiment.

At the 2025 Japan Mobility Show, Toyota unveiled the KidsMobi, an autonomous vehicle designed for children.

Financial services

The business known as Toyota Financial Services covers more than 30 countries and regions, including Japan. Financial services operations are coordinated by a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), Toyota Financial Services Corporation (TFSC), which has overall responsibility for the financial services subsidiaries globally.

The first TFS operation commenced in Sydney, Australia, in 1982 as Toyota Finance Australia Limited and was soon followed by operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Oceania.

TFS has constructed a global network that covers approximately 90% of the markets in which Toyota sells its vehicles. Mainly concentrated on auto loans, leases and Toyota dealer floorplan requirements, TFS provides auto sales financing to approximately 11.6 million customers, globally. Toyota Financial Service Corporation via its U.S. subsidiary "Toyota Motor Credit Corporation" owns Toyota Financial Savings Bank, an ILC chartered bank in Henderson, NV.

TFS offers its customers financial services that include auto sales financing, credit cards, retail sales of corporate bonds and investment trusts, and insurance.

Kazakhstan

In Kazakhstan, as of July 2021, the company ranks second in terms of assets (₸90.5 billion) among microfinance organizations in the country.

Sewing machine brand

Aisin, another member of the Toyota Group of companies, uses the same Toyota wordmark logo to market its home-use sewing machines. Aisin was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda after he founded the Toyota Motor Corporation. According to Aisin, he was so pleased with the first sewing machine, he decided to apply the same Toyota branding as his auto business, despite the companies being independent from each other.

Toyota Production System

The Toyota Way also helped shape the company's approach to production, where it was an early pioneer of what would become known as lean manufacturing. The company defines the Toyota Production System under two main pillars: just-in-time (make only what is needed, only when it is needed, and only in the amount that is needed) and Jidoka (automation with a human touch).

The origin of the Toyota Production System is in dispute, with three stories of its origin:

that during a 1950 trip to train with the Ford Motor Company, company executives also studied the just-in-time distribution system of the grocery store company Piggly-Wiggly,

that it followed the writings of W. Edwards Deming, and

they learned the principles from a WWII US government training program (Training Within Industry).

After developing the Toyota Production System in its own facilities, the company began teaching the system to its parts suppliers in the 1990s. Other companies were interested in the instruction, and Toyota later started offering training sessions. The company also has donated the training to non-profit groups to increase their efficiency and thus ability to serve people.

Logo and branding

In 1936, Toyota entered the passenger car market with its Model AA and held a competition to establish a new logo emphasizing speed for its new product line. After receiving 27,000 entries, one was selected that additionally resulted in a change of its moniker to "Toyota" from the family name "Toyoda", which means rice paddy. The new name was believed to sound better, and its eight-stroke count in the Japanese language was associated with wealth and good fortune. The original logo was a heavily stylized version of the katakana characters for Toyota (トヨタ).

As the company started to expand internationally in the late 1950s, the katakana character logo was supplemented by various wordmarks with the English form of the company name in all capital letters, "TOYOTA".

Toyota introduced a worldwide logo in October 1989 to commemorate the 50th year of the company, and to differentiate it from the newly released luxury Lexus brand. The logo consists of three ovals that combine to form the letter "T", which stands for Toyota. Toyota says that the overlapping of the two perpendicular ovals inside the larger oval represents the mutually beneficial relationship and trust between the customer and the company while the larger oval surrounding both of these inner ovals represents the "global expansion of Toyota's technology and unlimited potential for the future". The new logo started appearing on all printed material, advertisements, dealer signage, and most vehicles in 1990.

In countries or regions using traditional Chinese characters, e.g. Hong Kong and Taiwan, Toyota is known as "豐田". In countries using simplified Chinese characters (e.g. China and Singapore), Toyota is written as "丰田" (pronounced as Fēngtián in Mandarin Chinese and Hɔng Tshan in Minnanese). These are the same characters as the founding family's name "Toyoda" in Japanese.

Toyota still uses the katakana character logo as its corporate emblem in Japan, including on the headquarters building, and some special edition models still use the "TOYOTA" wordmark on the grille as a nod to the company's heritage.

On July 15, 2015, the company was delegated its own generic top-level domain,.toyota.

NHTSA received reports of a total of 37 deaths allegedly related to unintended acceleration, although an exact number was never verified. As a result of the problems, Toyota faced nearly 100 lawsuits from the families of those killed, drivers who were injured, vehicle owners who lost resale value, and investors who saw a drop in the value of their shares. While most of the personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits were settled confidentially, Toyota did spend more than US$1 billion to settle a class action lawsuit to compensate owners for lost resale value, and the company agreed to pay a US$1.2 billion criminal penalty to the United States government over accusations that it had intentionally hid information about safety defects from the public and had made deceptive statements to protect its brand image. The penalty was the largest ever levied against a car company.

Takata airbag recalls

Toyota was impacted by a recall of faulty airbag inflators made by Takata. The inflators can explode, shooting metal fragments into the vehicle cabin. Millions of vehicles produced between 2000 and 2014 were impacted by the recall, with some needing multiple repairs. As of January 2024, over 100 million Takata air bag inflators worldwide have been recalled by more than 20 carmakers.

June 2010 Chinese labour strike

On June 21, 2010, a Chinese labor strike happened in Tianjin Toyoda Gosei Co, Tianjin. Workers demanded better wages and treatment.

Extremist usage

In 2015, U.S. officials asked Toyota how the Islamic State was in possession of so many Toyota trucks. Toyota cars have also been documented to have been used by other extremist organizations such as the Taliban, Al-Shabab and Somali pirates. Toyota representatives have said the company has a strict policy to not sell vehicles to potential purchasers who may use or modify them for terrorist activities and that it cannot track aftermarket sales and that it has worked with the U.S Treasury to brief them on Toyota's supply chain on the Middle East.

Misleading marketing

In its marketing, Toyota has often referred to its non-plug-in hybrid vehicles as "self-charging hybrid" vehicles. The use of the term has caused some criticism that this is misleading, as some consumers were led to erroneously believe that these vehicles charge their batteries on their own when the vehicles are not used. Complaints about self-charging hybrid advertising were recorded in Ireland, although the complaints were rejected by the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland. However, in 2020, the Norwegian Consumer Authority banned the adverts outright in Norway, stating: "It is misleading to give the impression that the power to the hybrid battery is free of charge, since the electricity produced by the car has consumption of gasoline as a necessary condition."

Electric vehicle website IrishEVs criticised Toyota Ireland for paying University College Dublin to conduct a study of only seven examples of its hybrid cars over seven days to make a press release about the efficiency of the vehicles. The website also criticised Toyota Ireland for using opinion polls to substantiate a claim about its CO2 emissions on Twitter.

Safety-related misconduct by Daihatsu

On 28 April 2023, it was revealed that Toyota subsidiary Daihatsu had cheated by rigging some models to perform better in crash tests than actual production cars. The vehicles in question had a notch in the interior panel of the front door which avoided the possibility of the collision creating a sharp edge that could have injured an occupant when the side airbag deployed. This notch was present on the tested vehicles but not on vehicles sold to the public.

According to the announcement, the affected models were the Perodua Axia sold by its local joint venture by Perodua, the Toyota Agya and Toyota Yaris Ativ (also known as the Vios) sold under the Toyota brand, Daihatsu was responsible for everything from development to certification testing, and the vehicles in question were those that had been in production in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and an undisclosed upcoming product. No recall was conducted over the issue.

On 20 December 2023, Daihatsu halted shipments of 64 models, including two dozens branded as Toyota, after safety investigations uncovered misconduct far greater in scope than previously expected. In some models, the test speeds and results of headrest impact tests were falsified. In models such as the TownAce and Pixis Joy, the airbag control unit used in testing was different from the part installed on vehicles sold to the public. Affected markets included Japan as well as Bolivia, Cambodia, Chile, Ecuador, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Thailand, Uruguay, and Vietnam. On the same day a total of 174 frauds were discovered across 25 new test items. Daihatsu suspended shipments of all models sold domestically and internationally on the same day.

On 16 January 2024, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism announced its intention to revoke the requirement for mass production of three models under the Road Transport Vehicle Act, citing particularly egregious fraudulent activities. These models included the Daihatsu Gran Max Truck and its OEM counterparts: the Toyota TownAce Truck and the Mazda Bongo Truck.

On 29 January 2024, Koji Sato publicly apologized to customers, dealers and suppliers for the flawed testing.