The company along with the original Toyota Industries form bulk of the Toyota Group.Toyota owns and operates Toyota, Lexus, Scion, has a majority shareholding in Daihatsu Motors, and has minority shareholdings in Fuji Heavy Industries, Isuzu Motors, and the engine, motor cycle and marine craft manufacturer Yamaha Motors. The company includes 522 subsidiaries. Toyota plans to produce 9.51 and sell 9.36 million vehicles overall in 2007. It plans to produce 9.95 and sell 9.85 million vehicles in 2008 setting an industry record if it happens.By January 8 ,2008, the company will drop "Motor" from its corporate name and call itself simply "Toyota Corporation" (株式会社豊田 Kabushiki-gaisha Toyota). Toyota will change the Japanese writing of its brand name from Katakana to Kanji and "Corporation" will move from the end to the beginning.

Founding and earlier histor
In 1933, Toyoda Automatic Loom Works created a new division devoted to the production of automobiles under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda. Kiichiro Toyoda had traveled to Europe and the United States in 1929 to investigate automobile production, and had begun researching gasoline-powered engines in 1930. Toyoda Automatic Loom Works was encouraged to develop Automobile production by the Japanese government, which needed domestic vehicle production partly due to the worldwide money shortage and partly due to the war with China. In 1934, the division produced its first Type A Engine, 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. Early vehicles bear a striking resemblance to the Dodge Power Wagon and Chevrolet, with some parts actually interchanging with their American originals.

Although the Toyota Group is best known today for its cars, it is still in the textile business and still makes automatic looms, which are now fully computerized, and electric sewing machines which are available worldwide.Toyota Motor Co. was established as an independent and separate company in 1937. Although the founding family's name is Toyoda (豊田), the company name was changed in order to signify the separation of the founders' work life from home life, to simplify the pronunciation, and to 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; pinyin: fēng tián), with Chinese reading.During the Pacific War (World War II) 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. The war ended shortly before a scheduled Allied bombing run on the Toyota factories in Aichi.After the war, commercial passenger car production started in 1947 with the model SA. The quality and production principles on which Toyota is based originated in an education program from the United States Army in the postwar era. 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. The following year, the Toyota Crown became the first Japanese car to be exported to the United States and Toyota's American and Brazilian divisions, Toyota Motor Sales Inc. and Toyota do Brazil S.A., were also established. Toyota began to expand in the 1960s with a new research and development facility, a presence in Thailand was established, the 10 millionth model was produced, a Deming Prize and partnerships with Hino Motors and Daihatsu were also established. The first Toyota built outside Japan was in April 1963, at Port Melbourne in Australia. By the end of the decade, Toyota had established a worldwide presence, as the company had exported its one-millionth unit.

Later history and management

The Toyota Motor Company was awarded its first Japanese Quality Control Award at the start 1970s and began participating in a wide variety of Motorsports. Due to the 1973 oil crisis consumers in the lucrative U.S. market began turning to small cars with better fuel economy. American car manufacturers had considered small economy cars to be an "entry level" product, and their small vehicles were not made to a high level of quality in order to keep the price low. Japanese customers, however, had a long-standing tradition of demanding small fuel-efficient cars that were manufactured to a high level of quality. Because of this, companies like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan established a strong and growing presence in North America in the 1970s.

In 1982, the Toyota Motor Company and Toyota Motor Sales merged into one company, the Toyota Motor Corporation. Two years later, Toyota entered into a joint venture with GM called NUMMI, the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc, operating an automobile manufacturing plant in Fremont, California. The factory was an old General Motors plant that had been closed for several years. Toyota then started to establish new brands at the end of the 1980s, with the launch of their luxury division Lexus in 1989.In the 1990s Toyota began to branch out from producing mostly compact cars by adding many larger and more luxurious vehicles to its lineup, including a full sized pickup, the T100 (and later the Toyota Tundra), several lines of SUVs, a sport version of the Camry, known as the Camry Solara, and the Scion brand, a group of several affordable, yet sporty, automobiles targeted specifically to young adults. Toyota also began production of the world's best selling hybrid car, the Toyota Prius, in 1997.With a major presence with Europe, due to the success of Toyota Team Europe, the corporation decided to set up TMME, Toyota Motor Europe Marketing & Engineering, to help market vehicles in the continent. Two years later, Toyota set up a base in the United Kingdom, TMUK, as the company's cars had become very popular among British drivers. Bases in Indiana, Virginia and Tianjin were also set up. In 1999, the company decided to list itself on the New York and London Stock Exchange. In 2001, Toyota's Toyo Trust and Banking merged to form the UFJ, United Financials of Japan, which was accused of corruption by the Japan's government for making bad loans to alleged Yakuza crime syndicates with executives accused of blocking Financial Service Agency inspections.[14] The UFJ was listed among Fortune Magazine's largest money-losing corporations in the world, with Toyota's chairman serving as a director. At the time, the UFJ was one of the largest shareholders of Toyota. As a result of Japan's banking crisis, the UFJ was merged again to become Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.In 2002, Toyota managed to enter a Formula One works team and establish joint ventures with French motoring companies Citroën and Peugeot, a year after Toyota started producing cars in France.On December 7, 2004, a U.S. press release was issued stating that Toyota would be offering Sirius Satellite Radios. However, as late as Jan. 27, 2007, Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite radio kits were not available for Toyota factory radios.[citation needed] While the press release enumerated nine models, only limited availability existed at the dealer level in the U.S. Major Lexus dealerships have been offering satellite radio kits for Lexus vehicles since 2005, in addition to factory-equipped satellite radio models.In 2007, Toyota released an update of its full size truck, the Toyota Tundra, produced in two American factories, one in Texas and one in Indiana. "Motor Trend" named the Tundra "Truck of the Year," and the 2007 Toyota Camry "Car of the Year" for 2007. It also began the construction of two new factories, one to build the Toyota Rav4 in Woodstock, Ontario and the other to build the Toyota Highlander in Blue Springs, Mississippi.

Toyota today

Toyota has grown to a large multinational corporation from where it started and expanded to different worldwide markets and countries by becoming the largest seller of cars in the beginning of 2007, the most profitable automaker ($11 billion in 2006) along with increasing sales in, among other countries, the United States. The world headquarters of Toyota are located in its home country in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. Its subsidiary, Toyota Financial Services sells financing and participates in other lines of business. Toyota brands include Scion and Lexus and the corporation is part of the Toyota Group. Toyota also owns majority stakes in Daihatsu and Hino, and 8.7% of Fuji Heavy Industries, which manufactures Subaru vehicles. They also acquired 5.9% of Isuzu Motors Ltd. on November 7, 2006 and will be introducing Isuzu diesel technology into their products.Toyota has introduced new technologies including one of the first mass-produced hybrid gas-electric vehicles, of which it says it has sold 1 million globally (2007-06-07) , Advanced Parking Guidance System (automatic parking), a four-speed electronically controlled automatic with buttons for power and economy shifting, and an eight-speed automatic transmission. Toyota, and Toyota-produced Lexus and Scion automobiles, consistently rank near the top in certain quality and reliability surveys, primarily J.D. Power and Consumer Reports.In 2005, Toyota, combined with its half-owned subsidiary Daihatsu Motor Company, produced 8.54 million vehicles, about 500,000 fewer than the number produced by GM that year. Toyota has a large market share in the United States, but a small market share in Europe. Its also sells vehicles in Africa and is a market leader in Australia. Due to its Daihatsu subsidiary it has significant market shares in several fast-growing Southeast Asian countries.

In the Fortune Global 500, Toyota Motor is the 8th largest company in the world. Since the recession of 2001, it has gained market share in the United States. Toyota's market share struggles in Europe where its Lexus brand has three tenths of one percent market share, compared to nearly two percent market share as the U.S. luxury segment leader.In the first three months of 2007, Toyota together with its half-owned subsidiary Daihatsu reported number one sales of 2.348 million units. Toyota's brand sales had risen 9.2% largely on demand for Corolla and Camry sedans. The difference in performance was largely attributed to surging demand for fuel-efficient vehicles. In November 2006, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas added a facility in San Antonio. Toyota has experienced quality problems and was reprimanded by the government in Japan for its recall practices. Toyota currently maintains over 16% of the US market share and is listed second only to GM in terms of volume. Toyota Century is the official state car of the Japanese imperial family, namely for the Emperor of Japan Akihito.

Worldwide presence

The headquarters of Toyota in Toyota City, JapanToyota has factories all over the world, manufacturing or assembling vehicles for local markets, including the Corolla. Toyota has manufacturing or assembly plants in Japan, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Poland, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Brazil, and more recently Pakistan, India, Argentina, Czech Republic, Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, the Philippines, and Russia.Toyota has invested considerably into cleaner-burning vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, based on technology such as the Hybrid Synergy Drive. In 2002, Toyota successfully road-tested a new version of the RAV4 which ran on a Hydrogen fuel cell. Scientific American called the company its Business Brainwave of the Year in 2003 for commercializing an affordable hybrid car.

Toyota North America

Toyota North America headquarters is located in New York City and operates at a holding company level in North America. Its manufacturing headquarters is located in Erlanger, Kentucky, and is known as Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, or TMMNA. Toyota has large presence in the United States with five major assembly plants in Huntsville, Alabama; Georgetown, Kentucky; Princeton, Indiana; San Antonio, Texas; Buffalo, West Virginia; and a new one being built in Blue Springs, Mississippi. Toyota also has a joint-venture operation with General Motors at New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), in Fremont, CA, which began in 1984, and with Subaru at Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. (SIA), in Lafayette, IN, which started in 2006. Production on a new manufacturing plant in Tupelo, Mississippi is scheduled for completion in 2010; it will be producing the Toyota Highlander. North America is a major automobile market for Toyota. In these assembly plants, the Toyota Camry and the 2007 Toyota Tundra are manufactured, among others. Toyota uses a number of slogans in its American TV commercials such as It's time to move forward, Smart way to keep moving forward, or Moving forward. It has started producing larger trucks, such as the new Toyota Tundra, to go after the large truck market in the United States. Toyota is also pushing hybrid vehicles in the US such as the Toyota Prius, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Highlander Hybrid, and various Lexus products. Toyota has sold more hybrids vehicles in the country than any other manufacturer. Toyota is a public corporation and the company is traded at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange as a stock.Toyota also sponsors Chivas de Guadalajara.

United States employees and investments

Toyota directly employed around 34,675 people in the United States more than Cisco Systems, Texas Instruments and General Mills but far less than General Motors or Chrysler; invested USD $15.5 billion, produced 1.2 million vehicles using US and foreign auto parts, sold 2.54 million vehicles, and donated USD $340 million to nonprofits. It has in total 10 plants, USD $2.9 billion per year payroll, purchased USD $28 billion in parts and supplies from 30 states. It created around 386,000 jobs in the United States as result of Toyota's spending and demand from suppliers. It celebrated its 50th year anniversary in the United States in 2007 .

Hybrid and plug-in hybrid technologies

Toyota is one of the largest companies to push hybrid vehicles in the market and the first to commercially mass-produce and sell such vehicles, an example being the Toyota Prius. The company eventually began providing this option on the main smaller cars such as Camry and later with the Lexus divisions, producing some hybrid luxury vehicles. It labeled such technology in Toyota cars as "Hybrid Synergy Drive" and in Lexus versions as "Lexus Hybrid Drive."The Prius has become the top selling hybrid car in America. Toyota now has three hybrid vehicles in its lineup: the Prius, Highlander, & Camry. The popular minivan Toyota Sienna is scheduled to join the hybrid lineup by 2010, and by 2030 Toyota plans to offer its entire lineup of cars, trucks, and SUVs with a Hybrid Synergy Drive option.The Hybrid Synergy drive is the most widely rolled-out environment-friendly system in the automotive industry to date. More than 1,000,000 units have been sold, and within a few years Toyota will enlarge the number of hybrid models.
Lexus also has their own hybrid lineup, consisting of the GS 450h, RX 400h, and launched in 2007, the LS 600h/LS 600h L.Toyota is doing plug-in hybrid vehicle (called Toyota Plug-in HV) road tests in Japan with possible unveiling in Fall 2007. According to the report, Toyota is testing a lithium-ion battery pack in the plug-in. Their strategy is to maintain Toyota's leading position in hybrid technology with the PHEV which has an even lower environmental impact than existing hybrids, competing for mass-production with the GM Chevrolet Volt and Ford plug-in hybrids and V2G technology Toyota is committed to the hybrid technology and plans to make every car of Toyota a hybrid vehicle at some time.