[Music] Toyota is a well-known manufacturer of automobiles arguably the most successful company to ever do it that is a bold statement but in 20123 they sold 11.23 million vehicles around the world and by that measure they are the biggest it has been kind of a back and4th battle between Toyota and Volkswagen for that number one spot but Toyota has been coming out ahead for the past few Years also the Toyota Corolla I'm sure we're all at least familiar with it considering it is the bestselling car of all time it was introduced in the 1960s and
has consistently been offered by Toyota in different Generations ever since in 2021 it became the first car to ever sell over 50 million units these are all crazy numbers by the way that have clearly never been reached by anyone else around $300 billion in annual sales makes Toyota the 19th largest company in the world with over 375,000 employees I think it's impressive looking at how much they have been able to achieve over the years especially when you factor in their humble beginnings and some major setbacks over the years for this video I want to focus
on the foundation and growth of Toyota while highlighting three significant struggles that they've been able to overcome because to use a driving metaphor I find it inspirational to look back at the bumps along the road that they have had to pass to get to where they are today the person responsible for starting Toyota was kichiro Toyota spelled with a d all the way back in the 1930s see his father was heavily involved in the Japanese textile industry he had recently invented the automatic Loom and established his own company to capitalize on it hichiro started an
automotive segment originally as part of his father's company with the model AA sedan being the first car that they produced in 1936 shortly after the Toyota Motor Company was established you'll notice now spelled with the more familiar T instead of the D and the reason that they changed it isn't incredibly clear to my understanding the number eight is considered really lucky in Chinese culture and Japanese culture as well to an extent and altering the spelling made it so that when you write it in Japanese it takes eight Strokes to do it instead of 10 that
is the main reason that they provide and to me that sounds like a wild reason to change the name of your company they also say that the new name sounded more appealing likely to an international market so I'm going to Guess that that was a bigger factor in the decision either way I hope we can all agree that starting a car company in 1930s Japan was not the ideal time or place being right before the start of World War II it had such a negative impact on Toyota that it is going to be the first
major setback on my list things got really serious during the war practically all production was dedicated to the war efforts Toyota stopped making consumer cars altogether in favor of making trucks for the military but materials were scarce so most of these trucks were not the highest quality some were made with wooden seats or maybe one headlight in the middle toward the end of it they were salvaging parts from old trucks and reusing them to build the new trucks then when the war ended things got even worse the scarcity of supplies continued meanwhile the Japanese economy
was in poor condition to say the least a lot of people there could hardly afford to buy food so they certainly weren't buying cars and since government policies put in place to fight inflation made it difficult to secure loans there was very little money coming in they couldn't afford to pay their employees properly so they went on strike which caused production to drop significantly worsening the situation founder and president kichiro Toyota then resigned from the company and ended up passing away from an unrelated brain hemorrhage only 2 years later I know I'm a little scattered
trying to explain the situation here but things were chaotic at the time in short the Japanese economy following World War II put Toyota on the verge of bankruptcy and it's almost a miracle to they survived it at all they ultimately worked things out with the labor unions in an agreement that involved a 25% reduction in their Workforce they secured alone with one of the terms being that the sales division would be separated into its own company where it remained for over 30 years but the biggest part of the comeback I would say was the Korean
war Japan is close to Korea so early in the war the US military ordered almost 4700 trucks from Toyota and that was the spark that was used to reignite the business is it's kind of strange to think that World War II sent them down into a tail spin whereas the Korean War helped put them back on course it's hard to predict how these bigger events can affect companies like this especially considering that Toyota cars had never been available in the United States at this point and that is going to lead me straight into the second
setback on my list entering the US market obviously the United States is a large country with millions of drivers and in the 1950s with all the new roads being constructed and people buying cars for the first time it was a very attractive market for an automaker to be perfectly clear Toyota has always been a Japanese company that has had a strong connection to the United States before they ever even made their first car Toyota went to the US to visit a bunch of production plants to better learn how the cars were being made in the
country a similar thing happened in the 1950s where the management team from Toyota flew to the US to visit production plan so they can learn how to make their operations more efficient so in 1958 with high hopes and large Ambitions Toyota started selling cars in the United States with the first one being the Toyo pets crown and it was a total disaster the car was not considered to be especially quiet or reliable or honestly even built for the US market it topped out at 75 mph so most consumers viewed it as not being powerful enough
too expensive and even the name toyopet did not go over well it was sold in the country for only 4 years before being discontinued selling less than 3,000 units over that time for comparison the leading Brands were selling over a million each year so any way you look at it this was underwhelming and not a promising entry into the US markets however they came back strong in 1965 with their first car to become popular in America the Toyota Corona more of what you want in a new car a 90 horsepower engine goes 0 to 60
and 16 seconds they dropped the toyopet name gave it a more powerful engine capable of speeds much higher than 75 mph and overall it was tailor made for the American market and the sales reflected that in the 1970s Toyota passed Volkswagen to become the most imported car brand in the US and became widely recognized for their new slogan you asked for it you got it in the 1980s they started manufacturing cars in the US for the first time initially under a joint venture with General Motors America's largest car maker but then open their own production
facilities as well in 1989 they introduced a new luxury brand called Lexus that took a little more than a decade to become the bestselling luxury brand in the country that was also the year that they introduced that familiar logo that we all know partially to differentiate it from the Lexus cars but mostly to establish a more uniform Global identity they even say that the Outer Circle is meant to represent their Global reach and I don't even think I have to mention the Prius hybrid vehicle I think we all know how popular that became the Scion
and the Camry that consistently ranks as America's bestselling car in 2021 Toyota toota sold more cars in the US than General Motors marking the first time that GM wasn't the country's top selling car maker in 90 years now they have since lost that title but the US continues to be Toyota's biggest Market compare that to those 1950s numbers and we can visualize how far that they have come they're now beating us companies in their own territory and that is crazy to think about the final setback that I want to talk about is a little more
General but I'm going to put a few different events under the C category of recalls just to be clear compared to the other two on my list these occurred much later when Toyota was much more established in Japan and the US and the rest of the world so none of it has realistically threatened the company's existence but I think these are still significant because they have been a threat to their leading position their finances their reputation and the safety of the drivers in 2009 there was a huge controversy when they recalled millions of cars because
of dangerous floor mats I know that almost sounds like a joke but they would cause the accelerator to get stuck and that is a dangerous situation that potentially led to the deaths of as many as 89 people there is so much that could be said about this but Toyota paid over a billion dollars to settle a class action lawsuit involving the situation and over a billion dollars in criminal penalties to the US government the largest criminal penalty ever imposed on a car company in the US once again the timing of all of this was awful
it was during the recession when car sales were already struggling leading to some unusual usually poor sales figures and the following year Japan was hit by an earthquake and a tsunami that affected their supply chain and significantly impacted production so for reasons within their control and beyond their control that was an unsettling time for Toyota in 2014 it was announced that Toyota was one of many car companies impacted by faulty airbags provided by their supplier again it was a harmful mistake where multiple debts have led to troubling recalls that they are still dealing with there
are still plenty of Toyota cars on the road with dangerous airbags the national highway traffic safety administration called that one the largest and most complex safety recall in US history in 2016 not exactly a recall but Toyota agreed to pay more than $3 billion to settle a class action lawsuit involving truck owners who say that their vehicles did not receive adequate rust protection and that has compromised the Integrity of the frames they didn't admit to any wrongdoing but again not a great situation as recent as 2024 Two Toyota companies have been in the spotlight for
negative reasons one involving irregularities and certification tests for diesel engines and the other for forging results of safety test I guess for more than 30 years caused the head of the company to issue an apology and you could see how high-profile incidents like these can make people look at Toyota differently and question whether or not it would be a smart or even safe decision to buy a vehicle from them you have to admit they have had a fair amount of bad publicity over the past 15 years and have been amazingly unimpacted by it during during
that time they have grown into the world's largest car maker and it's yet another example of Toyota overcoming a potentially harmful situation let me know in the comments what do you think about Toyota as a company and as a car brand are you impressed by their ability to rise above their problems in the same way that I am taking over the Japanese Auto market and then the US Auto market and somehow holding on to all of it despite so much negative attention do you own a Toyota and if so are you happy with it and
what influenced your decision to buy it I'm curious to see what you think about them and if this video has impacted your opinion at all and any other thoughts you have about Toyota leave them in the comments I'd like to hear what you have to say thank you for watching [Music]
