Toyota Motor Corporation Japan

Toyota Motor Corporation: Toyota Japan’s most popular automobile brand around the world  was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937, as a spinoff from his father’s company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. Its headquartered is  located in Toyota, Aichi, Japan.Toyota the ninth-largest company in the world by revenue till October 2016.

Toyota the world’s first automobile manufacturer to produce more than 10 million vehicles per year since 2012. Toyota the world  leader in sales of hybrid electric vehicles. Also, Toyota Prius  is the world’s top selling hybrid model  with over 6 million units sold worldwide by January 2017. Toyota Motor Corporation produces vehicles under five brands, including the Toyota brand, Hino, Lexus, Ranz, and Daihatsu.

Established

August 28, 1937; 79 years ago

Headquarters

Toyota, Aichi, Japan

Founder

Kiichiro Toyoda

Website

toyota-global.com

History

1930s :

Foundation  of   today’s Toyota  was laid  way back  in 1924 when Sakichi Toyoda established a Toyoda Model G Automatic Loom. The production of Toyota automobiles was started in 1933 as a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, devoted to the production of automobiles under the direction of the founder’s son, Kiichiro Toyoda. Its first vehicles were the A1 passenger car and the G1 in 1935. In April 1936, Toyoda’s first passenger car, the Model AA, was completed. The sales price was 3,350 yen, cheaper than Ford or GM cars.The Toyota Motor Co. was established as an independent company in 1937.

1940 to 1950s :

The first vehicle sold under this name was the Toyopet SA, but it also included vehicles such as the Toyopet SB light truck, Toyopet Stout light truck, Toyopet Crown, Toyopet Master, and the Toyopet Corona. The word “Toyopet (Japanese article)” was a nickname given to the Toyota SA due to its small size, as the result of a naming contest the Toyota Company organized in 1947. Toyota eventually entered the American market in 1957 with the Crown, the name was not well received due to connotations of toys and pets. The name was soon dropped for the American market, but continued in other markets until the mid-1960s.

1960 to 1970s :

US placed a stiff import tariffs “chicken tax” of 1964 that placed a 25% tax on imported light trucks. Due  to the tariff, Toyota, Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. began building plants in the US by the early 1980s.

1980 to 1990s :

In 1980 Toyota received its first Japanese Quality Control Award and began participating in a wide variety of motorsports. In 1982, the Toyota Motor Company and Toyota Motor Sales merged into one company, and two years later, Toyota entered into a joint venture with General Motors called the  NUMMI, operating an automobile manufacturing plant in Fremont, California. Toyota manufactured new brands at the end of the 1980s,and also launched  their luxury division Lexus in 1989.

1990s :

In the 1990s, Toyota began to spread out from producing mostly compact cars by adding many larger and more luxurious vehicles like full-sized pickup, SUVs, a sport version of the Camry, Scion. They also launch newer and  iconic sports cars,like the MR2, Celica, and Supra. Toyota also began production of the world’s best-selling hybrid car, the Prius, by 1997.

2000s :

In 2002, Toyota entered a Formula One works team and establish joint ventures with French motoring companies Citroën and Peugeot and a year later started producing cars in France. Toyota ranked eighth on Forbes 2000 list of the world’s leading companies for the year 2005. In 2007, Toyota released an update of its full-sized truck, the Tundra, produced in two American factories, Texas and Indiana. Motor Trend named the Tundra “Truck of the Year”.The Toyota Camry “Car of the Year” for 2007.The company was number one in global automobile sales for the first quarter of 2008.
 It also began the construction of two new factories, one to build the RAV4 in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada, and the other to build the Toyota Prius in Blue Springs, Mississippi, USA. Toyota was manufactured in Princeton, Indiana and USA. The company has also found recent success with its smaller models—the Corolla and Yaris.

2014,Toyota decided to cease manufacturing vehicles and engines in Australia by the end of 2017 due to unfavourable Australian dollar making exports not viable.
Toyota narrowly topped global sales for the first half of 2014, selling 5.1 million vehicles. Volkswagen AG,with recorded sales of 5.07 million vehicles,close behind.

In November 2015, the company announced that it would invest US$1 billion over the next 5 years into artificial intelligence and robotics research. In 2016, Toyota invested in Uber.

Logo and Branding

After getting 27,000 entries, one has been selected for additionally resulted in a change of its moniker to “Toyota” from the family name “Toyoda.  Toyota revealed a new logo globally in October 1989.

In April 2001, Toyota adopted the “Toyota Way 2001”, an expression of values and conduct strategy. Toyota summarizes its values and conduct guidelines with its principles Challenge, Respect and Teamwork. Toyota company factories spread worldwide,with production or assembling for local markets in Japan, Australia, India, Sri Lanka, Canada, Indonesia, Poland, South Africa, Turkey, Colombia, and the United Kingdom etc.

Japan: The first sales channel created in 1946 called “Toyota Store sells large luxury sedans like Toyota Century, Toyota Crown. Toyota also functions with a commercial dealership called Toyota Diesel Shop from 1957 to 1988 that sold various commercial vehicles trucks, buses, and forklifts, such as the Toyota Dyna and Toyota Coaster.

Toyota’s plug-in hybrid electric vehicle version started in 2007 and Toyota made 600 Prius plug-in vehicles. The production version of the Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid appeared on January 2012 in Japan. They also represent their Lexus brand in other sports car racing categories including formula Nippon, Super GT, formula 3, and formula Toyota series.

Toyota Automobile Museum, Japan:

The Toyota Automobile Museum was opened in 1989 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Toyota Motor Corporation.The main exhibits at the Toyota Automobile Museum are about 140 vehicles from around the world. 

For more details: Toyota Automobile Museum, Japan

List of few top most popular Toyota models on JCT :