Toyota History

The Toyota story begins in the late nineteenth century, when Sakichi Toyoda invented the first automatic loom, which revolutionized the textile industry of the country. Fueled by the success of his looms, in 1907 founded the company Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, becoming a leading manufacturer of weaving machinery. Intrigued by the burgeoning auto industry in 1929 Sakichi sell their patent rights loom to Platt Brothers UK company and invests the revenue in the development of the first Toyota vehicle.



Kiichiro Toyoda, Sakichi's son, performs research on internal combustion engines run on gasoline, toured Europe and the United States to investigate this means of transport and import technology to Japan and founded in 1932, the Automotive Division of Toyota Automatic Loom Works and 1936 introduced the first motor car with 6-cylinder "V" and with a body almost equal to that of Chrysler Arrow. Finally in 1937 based Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha, in Japanese).

The 'Toyota Production System' is one of the main legacies of Toyota. He became known as TPS in 1970 but was established much earlier by Taiichi Ohno. Based on the principles of Jidoka, Just-In-Time and Kaizen, the system is a fundamental factor in reducing inventories and defects in the plants of Toyota and its suppliers, and supports all operations in the world. TPS, with its emphasis on continuous improvement and value of employee engagement is considered by the automotive industry as a real benchmark.


After the war, Toyota became the largest car manufacturer in Japan with over 40% market share. The growth strategy of Toyota was driven by its integration into the international market. His first model sold in the U.S. market was the Crown in 1957 and in 1965 the Corolla. Production of vehicles outside Japan began in 1959 in a small plant in Brazil, and continued with a growing network of manufacturing plants around the world, achieving international recognition during the seventies with the installation of industrial plants and development centers in United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Toyota is still currently represented on the board of directors by a descendant of the Toyoda family, Akio Toyoda has served as Vice President of the Company.
Based since its founding in Toyota City, in the region of Nagoya, the Toyota group is the largest company in Japan, employs about 286 000 people distributed in 523 companies (292 in Japan and 231 overseas). Toyota Motor has a total of 12 factories in Japan and 52 in 27 countries.


Toyota had a market share of 45.5% Japanese in 2006, and also controls 15% market estadounidense.El Japanese group, which broke in sales and production to its U.S. rival General Motors in the first quarter of 2007, expects to produce 9.42 million vehicles in the world in 2008.