Toyota Motor Corporation (Japanese: トヨタ自動車株式会社, Hepburn: Toyota Jidōsha

kabushikigaisha, IPA: [toꜜjota], English: /tɔɪˈjoʊtə/, commonly known as simply Toyota) is a

Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It
was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on August 28, 1937. Toyota is the largest
automobile manufacturer in the world, producing about 10 million vehicles per year.

The company was originally 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 in
1936, the Toyota AA.

After World War II, Toyota benefited from Japan's alliance with the United States to learn from
American automakers and other companies, which gave rise to The Toyota Way (a management
philosophy) and the Toyota Production System (a lean manufacturing practice) that transformed
the small company into a leader in the industry and was the subject of many academic studies.

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. The booming economy also funded an international
expansion that allowed Toyota to grow into one of the largest automakers in the world,
the largest company in Japan and the ninth-largest company in the world by revenue, as of
December 2020. 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.[3]

Toyota was praised for being a leader in the development and sales of more fuel-efficient hybrid
electric vehicles, starting with the introduction of the XW10 Toyota Prius in 1997. The company
now sells more than 40 hybrid vehicle models around the world. More recently, the company has
also been criticized for being slow to adopt all-electric vehicles and focusing on the development
of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, like the Toyota Mirai, a technology that is costlier and has fallen far
behind electric batteries.

As of 2022, the Toyota Motor Corporation produces vehicles under four

brands: Daihatsu, Hino, Lexus and the namesake Toyota. The company 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, as well as stakes in
vehicle manufacturing joint-ventures in China (FAW Toyota and GAC Toyota), the Czech
Republic (TPCA), India (Toyota Kirloskar) and the United States (MTMUS).

Toyota is listed on the London Stock Exchange, Nagoya Stock Exchange, New York Stock
Exchange and on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where its stock is a component of the Nikkei
225 and TOPIX Core30 indices.

History
Main article: History of Toyota
1920s–1930s
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 The mass-produced Toyoda automated loom, displayed at
Toyota Museum in Aichi-gun, Japan
In 1924, Sakichi Toyoda invented the Toyoda Model G Automatic Loom. The principle of jidoka,
which means the machine stops itself when a problem occurs, became later a part of the Toyota
Production System. Looms were built on a small production line. In 1929, the patent for the
automatic loom was sold to the British company Platt Brothers,[4][5] generating the starting capital
for automobile development.[6][7]

Under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda,[8][9][10] Toyoda Automatic Loom
Works established an Automobile Division on September 1, 1933, and formally declared its
intention to begin manufacturing automobiles on January 29, 1934.[8][11] A prototype Toyota Type
A engine was completed on September 25, 1934, with the company's first prototype sedan,
the A1, completed the following May. As Kiichiro had limited experience with automobile
production, he initially focused on truck production; the company's first truck, the G1, was
completed on August 25, 1935, and debuted on November 21 in Tokyo, becoming the
company's first production model.[8][12][non-primary source needed] Modeled on a period Ford truck, the G1 sold
for ¥2,900, ¥200 cheaper than the Ford truck. A total of 379 G1 trucks were ultimately
produced.[12][13]

In April 1936, Toyoda's first passenger car, the Model AA, was completed. The sales price was
¥3,350, ¥400 cheaper than Ford or GM cars.[14][non-primary source needed] The company's plant at Kariya
was completed in May. In July, the company filled its first export order, with four G1 trucks
exported to northeastern China.[8][non-primary source needed] On September 19, 1936, the Japanese imperial
government officially designated Toyota Automatic Loom Works as an automotive
manufacturer.[8][non-primary source needed]

The 1936 Toyota AA, the first vehicle produced by the

company while it was still a department of Toyota Industries
Vehicles were originally sold under the name "Toyoda" (トヨダ), from the family name of the
company's 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
Japanese katakana letters for "Toyoda" in a circle. However, Rizaburo Toyoda, who had married
into the family and was not born with that name, preferred "Toyota" (トヨタ) because it took eight
brush strokes (a lucky number) to write in Japanese, was visually simpler (leaving off
the diacritic at the end), and with a voiceless consonant instead of a voiced one (voiced
consonants are considered to have a "murky" or "muddy" sound compared to voiceless
consonants, which are "clear").

Since toyoda literally means "fertile rice paddies", changing the name also prevented the
company from being associated with old-fashioned farming. The newly formed word was
trademarked and the company began trading on August 28, 1937, as the Toyota Motor Company
Ltd.[8][15][16][17] Kiichiro's brother-in-law Rizaburo Toyoda was appointed the firm's first president,
with Kiichiro as vice-president. Toyota Automatic Loom Works formally transferred automobile
manufacturing to the new entity on September 29.[8][non-primary source needed]

The Japanese government supported the company by preventing foreign

competitors Ford and General Motors from importing automobiles into Japan.[18]

At the onset of World War II, Toyota almost exclusively produced standard-sized trucks for the
Japanese Army, which paid one-fifth of the price in advance and the remainder in cash upon
delivery.[19][20]

1940s
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Japan was heavily damaged in World War II and Toyota's plants, which were used for the war
effort, were not spared. On August 14, 1945, one day before the surrender of Japan, Toyota's
Koromo Plant was bombed by the Allied forces.[21][22][23] After the surrender, the U.S.-led occupying
forces banned passenger car production in Japan. However, automakers like Toyota were
allowed to begin building trucks for civilian use, in an effort to rebuild the nation's
infrastructure.[24][non-primary source needed] The U.S. military also contracted with Toyota to repair its
vehicles.[25][non-primary source needed]

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.[26][non-primary source needed] Ultimately, the Bank of Japan, the central
bank of the country, bailed out the company, with demands that the company institute
reforms.[27][non-primary source needed]

1950s
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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.[28] The order
helped to rapidly improve the struggling company's business performance.[29][non-primary source needed] 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.[30][non-primary source needed] 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.[31]