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Toyota Motor Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures automobiles, trucks and buses. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda. The headquarters of Toyota is located in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. Toyota also provides and participates in other lines of business. It manufactures vehicles sold in the United States under the brand names Toyota, Scion and Lexus. Toyota also owns majority stakes in Daihatsu and Hino Motors, Ltd., and 8.7% of Fuji Heavy Industries, which manufactures Subaru vehicles.
Toyota is the #2 global leader in sales. In July of 2006, for the first time in history, Toyota sold the second most cars and truck in the United States. In the 2006 Forbes Global 2000 it was the twelfth-largest company in the world, and it ranked as tenth in the 2005 list. As of 2005, Toyota produced 8.54 million vehicles, about 500,000 fewer than the number produced by GM, with a profit of 12 billion dollars. The company dominates its home market with about 46% of all new cars registered in 2005 being Toyotas. Toyota is taking the spotlight in the automotive industry away from companies like GM and Chrysler. Toyota also has a large market share in United States, Europe and Africa and market leader in Australia. Toyota combines affordability with great quality. It has significant market shares in several fast-growing South East Asian countries.
Origins
The story of the Toyota Motor Corporation began in September 1933 when Toyoda Automatic Loom created a new division devoted to the production of automobiles under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda. Soon thereafter, the division produced its first Type A Engine in 1934, which was used in the first Model A1 passenger car in May 1935 and the G1 truck in August 1935. Production of the Model AA passenger car started in 1936.
Although the Toyota Group is best known today for its cars, it is still in the textile business and still makes automatic looms (fully computerized, of course), and electric sewing machines which are available worldwide.
Toyota Motor Co. was established as an independent company in 1937. Although the founding family name is Toyoda (豊田), the company name was changed to:
- Signify the separation of the founders' work life from home life;
- Simplify the pronunciation, and
- Give the company a happy beginning. Toyota (トヨタ) is considered luckier than Toyoda (豊田) in Japan, where eight is regarded as a lucky number, and eight is the number of strokes it takes to write Toyota in Katakana. In Chinese, the company and its vehicles are still referred to by the equivalent characters (Traditional Chinese: 豐田; Simplified Chinese: 丰田), with Chinese reading.
During the Pacific War the company was dedicated to truck production for the Imperial Japanese Army. Because of severe shortages in Japan, military trucks were kept as simple as possible. For example, the trucks had only one headlight on the center of the hood.
Fortunately for Toyota, the war ended shortly before a scheduled allied bombing run on the Toyota factories in Aichi.
Commercial passenger car production started in 1947 with the model SA. In 1950 a separate sales company Toyota Motor Sales Co. was established (which lasted until July 1982). In April 1956 the Toyopet dealer chain was established and in 1957 Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A was established.
Auto racing
World Rally Championship
Toyota has also been successful in racing, especially in Rally with the Toyota Celica as well as the Toyota Corolla in the 1980s and 1990s. It has a racing cars and parts division called Toyota Racing Development or TRD.
Championship Auto Racing Teams
Toyota raced in CART (a.k.a. the Champ Car World Series) from 1996 to 2002. Its early years in the series were marked by struggles. Toyota-powered cars, campaigned by the All-American Racers and PPI Motorsports teams, languished at the back of the grid, slow and unreliable. Toyota didn't even lead a lap until Alex Barron led 12 laps at the Vancouver street circuit in September 1998. Toyota started seeing its fortunes improve in 1999 as Scott Pruett took pole position at the final race of the season at the California Speedway. The next year, Juan Pablo Montoya gave Toyota its first-ever CART win at the Milwaukee Mile, the first of 5 races won by Toyota-powered cars that year. Toyota-powered cars won six races in 2001. In 2002, Toyota's final year in the championship, it turned things around completely from its bleak debut. Toyota won the Manufacturer's championship, 10 races, and Cristiano Da Matta rode Toyota power to the driver's championship. As icing on the cake, Bruno Junqueira, also Toyota-powered finished second.
Indy Racing League
Toyota moved to the Indy Racing League in 2003 and provided factory support to former CART teams Penske Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing as well as other teams. They were one of the top engines in their first year, winning the Indianapolis 500 with Gil de Ferran and the championship with Scott Dixon. However, 2004 and 2005 were not so kind and wins were few and far between. Following the 2005 season, the Penske and Ganassi teams announced they would switch engines to Honda, leaving Toyota with no championship contenders. As a result of this and their intent to re-allocate resources for NASCAR, Toyota announced they would leave the series during the offseason.
Prototype Sports Car racing and the 24 Hours of Le Mans
In 1998, Toyota debuted the sleek new GT-One prototype racing cars to compete for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The three Toyota GT-One cars (codenamed TS020) were among the fastest cars on the track, but ultimately failed in their quest for overall victory at Le Mans due to various mechanical and electrical failures. Toyota returned to the Circuit de la Sarthe in 1999 with revised models of it's GT-One prototype. The cars proved to be even faster than the year before, but succumbed to reliability problems during the grueling race. After the 1999 race, Toyota withdrew the GT-One cars in favor of focusing its racing research and development on the future Formula One effort.
Entry into Formula One
In 2002 Toyota started racing in Formula One with Toyota Team Europe, based in Cologne. Despite a huge investment, the team's performances have been mediocre so far. In 2004, top designer Mike Gascoyne was hired; by 2005 the team had advanced from the midfield to challenging for the top positions. Jarno Trulli achieved two second places and one third place in the first five races of the season, helping the team to retain second position in the Constructors Championship for several races. Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher are the team's current drivers.
In November 2009, Toyota finalized its decision to pull out of Formula One, following the exodus of Honda, Sauber, Super Aguri and BMW. According to CEO Akio Toyoda,
"Based on the current economic environment, we realise we have no choice but to withdraw."
NASCAR
In 2007, Toyota expanded its Manufacturer into NASCAR Stock Car Racing. As of 2012, the Toyota Tundra is raced in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and in the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series, Toyota uses their popular Camery model.
Rugby team
- Toyota Verblitz is in Japan's Top League.
Publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under number 7203 (first section). Also on NYSE under NYSE:TM.
Holdings
Toyota reports on its consolidated financial statements 540 consolidated subsidiaries and 226 affiliates.
- Toyota Motor North America (100% - 2004)
- Hino Motors (50.1% - March 31, 2005)
- Daihatsu Motor Company (51.2% - March 31, 2005)
- DENSO (22.98% - March 31, 2005)
- Aisin Seiki Co. (23.0% - March 31, 2005)
- Toyota Canada Inc. owned via Toyota Motor North America
- Fuji Heavy Industries (8.7% - October 5, 2005)
Production plants
Australia
- Port Melbourne, Victoria (1971-1994)
- Dandenong, Victoria (1989-1994)
- Altona, Victoria (1994>)
Non-automotive activities
Finance
Toyota Financial Services Corporation provides financing to Toyota customers.
Agricultural biotechnology
Toyota invests in several small start-up businesses and partnerships in biotechnology, including:
- P.T. Toyota Bio Indonesia in Lampung, Indonesia
- Australian Afforestation Pty. Ltd. in Western Australia and Southern Australia
- Toyota Floritech Co., Ltd. in Rokkasho-Mura, Kamikita District, Aomori Prefecture
- Sichuan Toyota Nitan Development Co., Ltd. in Sichuan, China
- Toyota Roof Garden Corporation in Miyoshi-Cho, Aichi Prefecture
Namesakes
Toyota is also a city in Aichi prefecture, Japan, named after the corporation. The basketball and hockey arena in Houston, Texas, the Toyota Center, is also named after the company. A football (soccer) stadium in Prague, Czech Republic, the Toyota Arena, also bears the company's name, as well as Toyota Park Rugby League Stadium, in Cronulla, New South Wales, Australia, home of the Cronulla Sutherland Sharks Rugby League Team. Toyota also sponsors the Nagoya Grampus Eight. The team also plays its home games at Toyota Stadium. A practice facility in El Segundo, California is named for Toyota (Toyota Sports Center).
- In the hit MMORPG EverQuest, players can type /atoyot to experience "quite the feeling", with an associated player graphic, perhaps referring to their well-known 1980's slogan "Oh, what a feeling!"
- The synthpop band, Human League have a song titled, Toyota City on their album Travelogue.
- Toyota means bountiful rice field in Japanese.
Diminishing reputation
Toyota came under fire in the 2008-2010 Global Finanical Crisis with a number of recalls. Toyota's first two recalls are for the sticking accelerator pedal and anti-lock braking problems in the Prius. The company made 10 million recalls including trucks. One of the culprits for the sticking accelerator as Toyota investigators found out was a mat.
In August 2010, Toyota made 1.33 million recalls for Corollas and Matrixes in the USA and Canada for the defective fuel pump that can make the engine stall.
In October 2010, Toyota made another recall for the leaking brake master cylinder. A leaking master cylinder can reduce braking performance if not fixed. Of the vehicles recalled, they included the 2005-2006 Avalon, 2004-2006 Highlander and Lexus RX330 (non-hybrid), 2006 Lexus GS300, IS250 and IS350 in the USA. In Australia, the cars recalled are the Kluger, Lexus RX330, GS300 and the IS250. The USA will recall 740,000 cars, Japan will recall 600,000, Europe will recall 50,000, China will recall 60,000, Australia will recall 30,000 and the other countries of Asia will recall 50,000 cars. [1]
See Also
Template:ToyotainNASCAR
External links
- Toyota Motor Corp. websites
- Toyota Motor official site
- Toyota Argentina Template:Es icon
- Toyota Australia
- Toyota USA
- Toyota UK (Sales Site)
- Toyota Canada
- Toyota Colombia Template:Es icon
- Toyota India
- Toyota Indonesia Template:Id
- Toyota Ireland
- Toyota Malaysia
- Toyota Mexico Template:Es icon
- Toyota New Zealand
- Toyota Pakistan
- Toyota Peru Template:Es icon
- Toyota Philippines
- Toyota Singapore
- Toyota South Africa
- Toyota Sweden
- Toyota Thailand Template:Th icon
- Toyota UK (Information Site)
- Toyota Venezuela Template:Es icon
- Scion USA (requires flash)
- lexus.com/ Lexus USA USA USA
- Toyota Reviews | Specifications | Images
- Toyota Financial Services USA
- Current Japanese Toyota lineup
- Current American Toyota lineup (requires Flash)
- Toyota North America 2003 Environmental Report (pdf format)
- Toyota North America 2004 Environmental Report (pdf format)
- Toyota Car Club
- Toyota Corolla Info
- Toyota India
- Details of all Toyota cars sold in India
- Independent UK importer of Toyota FJ Cruiser
- Information on Toyota's environmental protection policies
- http://www.antonov-transmission.com/ (Antonov Hybrid Technology Sues Toyota Over Patents)
- Toyota confirms F1 quit decision
Data
- Yahoo! - Toyota Motor Corporation Company Profile
- Toyota buying GM's Subaru stake
- Free Toyota VIN decoder
- Toyota VIN decoder
- Toyota VIN Lookup
Legal matters
References
- 2005 Toyota Highlander Hybrid. Retrieved January 11, 2004 from CanadianDriver Communications, Inc. (2004)