About Toyota
Toyota is the company other carmakers study, envy and occasionally license hybrid patents from. It builds more vehicles than anyone on Earth, and it got there not with flash but with an almost religious devotion to quality and process. The Toyota Production System, with its just-in-time parts flow and relentless small improvements called kaizen, became required reading in business schools. For shoppers the result is simpler: a Toyota is the default safe choice, the car that holds its value and keeps running long after the payments end.
The company grew out of Sakichi Toyoda's automatic loom business, and his son Kiichiro launched the car operation in the 1930s. In America, the Corona and Corolla won over buyers fleeing thirsty domestic sedans in the 1970s; the Camry, Tacoma, RAV4 and Lexus division followed. In 1997 the Prius made Toyota the hybrid pioneer, a lead it has never surrendered. Its reputation took a beating during the unintended-acceleration recalls around 2009 and 2010, and recent engine recalls on the Tundra and Lexus LX have reminded fans that even Toyota is fallible.
Today the lineup spans tiny Yaris and Vios sedans for emerging markets, the global Hilux and Land Cruiser, American-built trucks and SUVs and an expanding family of bZ electric models. Under chairman Akio Toyoda, the company has preached a multi-pathway strategy of hybrids, plug-ins, battery EVs and hydrogen rather than an all-in electric bet. Gazoo Racing has also reawakened its enthusiast side with the GR Supra, GR86, GR Corolla and a new GR GT flagship.
News here covers it all: reveals and refreshes, recalls and reliability rankings, sales races with Ford, Hyundai and Volkswagen, factory investments in Kentucky, Texas, Indiana and North Carolina, battery and next-generation hybrid engine plans, tariffs, motorsport and concept cars from Tokyo and SEMA. Keep an eye on the slow handover from the TNGA platforms to a new generation of architectures and engines, on how hard Toyota leans into battery-electric cars as rules tighten in Europe and China, and on the succession of leaders who will inherit the founding family's very long shadow.