The Toyota Motor Company Received Its First Japanese Quality Control Award at the Start of the 1980S and Began Participating in a Wide Variety of Motorsports
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The Toyota Motor Company received its first Japanese Quality Control Award at the start of the 1980s and began participating in a wide variety of motorsports. Due to the 1973 oil crisis, consumers in the lucrative US 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 employed a low level of quality in order to keep the price low. By the early sixties, the US had begun placing stiff import tariffs on certain vehicles. The Chicken tax of 1964 placed a 25% tax on imported light trucks.[30] In response to the tariff, Toyota, Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. began building plants in the US by the early eighties.[30] 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 General Motors 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 two 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 theTundra); 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 Prius, in 1997. With a major presence in 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 Exchanges. Toyota Deutschland's headquarters in Cologne In 2001, Toyota's Toyo Trust and Banking merged with two other banks to form UFJ Bank, 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.[31] The UFJ was listed among Fortune Magazine's largest money-losing corporations in the world, with Toyota's chairman serving as a director.[32] At the time, the UFJ was one of the largest shareholders of Toyota. As a result of Japan's banking crisis, UFJ merged with the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi to become the 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. Toyota ranked eighth on Forbes 2000 list of the world's leading companies for the year 2005.[33] The company was number one in global automobile sales for the first quarter of 2008.[34] On December 7, 2004, a US press release was issued stating that Toyota would be offering Sirius Satellite Radios. However, as late as January 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 US. As of 2008, all Toyota and Scion models have either standard or available XM radio kits. 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 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 RAV4 in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada and the other to build the Toyota Prius in Blue Springs, Mississippi, USA. This plant was originally intended to build the Toyota Highlander, but Toyota decided to use the plant in Princeton, Indiana, USA, instead. The company has also found recent success with its smaller models—the Corolla and Yaris—as gas prices have risen rapidly in the last few years. [edit]Logo and branding A replica of the 1936 Toyota Model AA, with the original Toyoda logo In 1936, Toyota entered the passenger car market with its Model AA and held a competition to establish a new logo emphasizing speed for its new product line. After receiving 27,000 entries, one was selected that additionally resulted in a change of its monikor to "Toyota" from the family name "Toyoda." It was believed that the new name sounded better and its eight-stroke count in the Japanese language was associated with wealth and good fortune. The original logo no longer is found on its vehicles but remains the corporate emblem used in Japan. Still, there were no guidelines for the use of the brand name, "TOYOTA", which was used throughout most of the world, which led to inconsistencies in its worldwide marketing campaigns. To remedy this, Toyota introduced a new worldwide logo in 1989 in conjunction with and to differentiate it from the newly released luxury Lexus brand. There are three ovals in the new logo that combine to form the letter "T", which stands for Toyota. The overlapping of the two perpendicular ovals inside the larger oval represent the mutually beneficial relationship and trust that is placed between the customer and the company while the larger oval that surrounds both of these inner ovals represent the "global expansion of Toyota's technology and unlimited potential for the future."[35] The logo started appearing on all printed material, advertisements, dealer signage, and the vehicles themselves in 1990. [edit]Marketing MEGAWEB, Toyota's permanent exhibition showroom and museum in Odaiba, Tokyo Toyota's marketing efforts have focused on emphasizing the positive experiences of ownership and vehicle quality.[36] The ownership experience has been targeted in slogans such as "Oh, what a feeling!" (1978–1985, in the US),[36] "Who could ask for anything more" (1986–1989), "I love what you do for me, Toyota!" (1990–1997), "Everyday" (1997–2000)", "Get the feeling!" (2001–2004), and "Moving Forward" (2004–present).[37] Recently, Toyota's new United States marketing strategy has included such hits as "Swagger Wagon" [38] and the marketing for the new Avalon,[39] which includes a throwback to the "old days of travel." [edit]Sports See Toyota Center, Toyota Park, Toyota Racing, Toyota Racing Development, and Toyota in motorsports [edit]Toyota philosophy Main article: The Toyota Way Toyota's management philosophy has evolved from the company's origins and has been reflected in the terms "Lean Manufacturing" and Just In Time Production, which it was instrumental in developing. [40] Toyota's managerial values and business methods are known collectively as the Toyota Way. In April 2001 the Toyota Motor Corporation adopted the "Toyota Way 2001," an expression of values and conduct guidelines that all Toyota employees should embrace. Under the two headings ofRespect for People and Continuous Improvement, Toyota summarizes its values and conduct guidelines with the following five principles:[41] . Challenge . Kaizen (improvement) . Genchi Genbutsu (go and see) . Respect . Teamwork According to external observers, the Toyota Way has four components:[42] 1. Long-term thinking as a basis for management decisions. 2. A process for problem-solving. 3. Adding value to the organization by developing its people. 4. Recognizing that continuously solving root problems drives organizational learning. The Toyota Way incorporates the Toyota Production System. [edit]Toyota Production System Main article: Toyota Production System Toyota has long been recognized as an industry leader in manufacturing and production. Three stories of its origin have been found,[where?] one that they studied Piggly-Wiggly's just-in-time distribution system, one that they followed the writings of W. Edwards Deming, and one that they were given the principles from a WWII US government training program (Training Within Industry).[citation needed] It is possible that all these, and more, are true.[vague] Regardless of the origin, the principles described by Toyota in its management philosophy, The Toyota Way, are: Challenge, Kaizen (improvement), Genchi Genbutsu (go and see), Respect, and Teamwork.[41] As described by external observers of Toyota, the principles of the Toyota Way are:[42] 1. Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short- term goals 2. Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface 3. Use "pull" systems to avoid overproduction 4. Level out the workload 5. Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time 6. Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment 7. Use visual control so no problems are hidden 8. Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes 9. Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others 10. Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy 11. Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve 12.