Everything you need to know about Toyota

The superlatives come easily when discussing the subject of Toyota. It built its first vehicle in 1935 and has, for many years, been the largest automotive manufacturer in the world.

Toyota is also the ninth largest company of any type in the world. It turns out around ten million vehicles a year, becoming the first automotive maker to achieve this milestone in 2012. In that year, total Toyota production passed 200 million vehicles and it only took another 11 years to hit 300 million, in 2023. Oh, and the often-maligned Corolla is also the world’s biggest-selling car by name (not a single model, obviously, but over a number of generations).

The headlines around Toyota don’t just concern quantity, however. The company was a pioneer of hybrid engines – the first Prius hybrid appeared in 1997 and in following years the phrase ‘Prius’ became a watchword for environmentally-conscious motoring. Mind you, this reputation has been diluted in more recent times by Toyota’s slow adoption of full-electric propulsion in favour of investing in hydrogen fuel-cell research, technology that still faces challenges as a car powertrain.

Yet while Toyota may be late to the EV party, its management will still presumably be content to look at the company’s sales figures…

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Everything you need to know about Toyota

So who or what is Toyota?

Many car manufacturers started off making something else and, in Toyota’s case, it was textile looms. In 1933, Kiichiro Toyoda started an automotive division within the loom manufacturing company established by his father nine years earlier. The first Toyota engine appeared in 1934, followed by a truck in 1935 and the first car, called the AA, in 1936.

In 1937 the automotive division became the Toyota Motor Company – taking the name reputedly because writing ‘Toyota’ rather than ‘Toyoda’ in Japanese took eight brush strokes, considered a lucky number.

Toyota made trucks for the Japanese army during the second world war, and following Japan’s surrender was allowed by the occupying US forces to continue truck production to help rebuild the nation, but not to make cars. This lasted until 1949 and almost saw Toyota go bankrupt as a result.

Things changed quickly – the outbreak of the Korean War resulted in an order from the US military for 1,000 Toyota trucks. Meanwhile, the company’s executives went to America to learn all about car production. They returned home with lots of knowledge, resulting in management philosophies ‘The Toyota Way’ and ‘Toyota Production System’, which would quickly take the company to the very top of the automotive industry.

In the 1950s, Toyota tried to sell its Crown model in the US. It flopped because it was designed for the poor roads then prevalent in Japan and was too unrefined for the better quality US highway system.

The company had rather more success in exporting another model, the Land Cruiser 4×4 utility vehicle. One of its first and most important export markets was Australia, where it quickly found favour with companies and farmers who were fed up with their unreliable Land Rover vehicles. Over the last 70-odd years, Toyota has sold more than a million Land Cruisers in Australia alone, and the country has a well-known saying: “If you want to go Outback, take a Land Rover. If you want to come back, take a Toyota.”

By the early 1960s, a booming Japanese economy not only allowed Toyota to build affordable cars for local customers but one designed specifically to finally crack the US market. Launched in 1965, the Corona proved a big hit with American buyers.

An even bigger, and global, success followed in 1966 – the Corolla. By 1974, it was the best-selling vehicle in the world and three years later it overtook the Volkswagen Beetle for total numbers sold. The Corolla is still a core part of Toyota’s line-up today – in Europe and Japan the company tried renaming it Auris in 2006, but by 2018 went back to calling it Corolla.

Toyota Corolla through the years

In the 1980s, as nations started worrying about the large influx of imported Japanese cars flooding their markets, Toyota and other Japanese brands responded by setting up factories to build their cars in their largest export markets. Britain was among these, with Toyota opening an engine factory in Deeside, Wales in 1990 and a car factory in Burnaston, Derbyshire in 1992. Today, the company builds the latest Corolla hatch and estate models in Burnaston.

In 1989, Toyota launched an upmarket brand called Lexus, which we explored last week. Through the 1990s, Toyota expanded its model range to include sports cars such as the Celica, MR2 and much-admired Supra, and SUVs, building on the success of its famous Land Cruiser and expanding to the highly popular RAV4, which was the first lifestyle SUV-style vehicle that is the default family car style today.

The dawn of the new millennium saw the first exports of a new petrol-electric hybrid model called the Prius. While rival Honda had been first company to put a hybrid car on sale, it was Toyota that really ran with the technology. The Prius was first choice for those drivers who wanted to feel they were saving the planet and Toyota has promoted hybrid technology ever since.

Toyota also heavily invested in hydrogen fuel cell technology, which has not been anywhere near as successful. The technology – a way of powering electric vehicles instead of conventional batteries – has had almost no support from the rest of the car industry or governments around the world. In the eyes of many, Toyota has allowed rivals steal a march on the global shift to battery-electric vehicles. The first fully-electric Toyota, a joint effort with Subaru, only went on UK sale in 2022.

By 2008, Toyota was the biggest global vehicle manufacturer in terms of sales, though its reputation was dented that year by a massive recall of nine million vehicles to fix a fault that threatened to make them to accelerate without warning. The issue was blamed for at least 37 fatal injuries in crashes and cost Toyota more than $2 billion in compensation in America alone.

Further challenges followed, including earthquakes and a tsunami in Japan in 2011, but by 2020 Toyota had reclaimed its position at the top of the world automotive market, unseating great rival Volkswagen Group with 9.5 million global sales despite the Covid pandemic.

Toyota remains at the top today, not only with its own production but also holding stakes in other Japanese car makers. The company owns 20% of Subaru, 5% of Mazda, almost 5% of Suzuki and Isuzu, and close to 4% of Yamaha – truly an automotive giant…

What models does Toyota have and what else is coming?

For much of its history, Toyota has been famed for its small, thoroughly competent if not often over-exciting cars. Today, its model is line-up dominated by SUVs and petrol-electric hybrid powertrains.

The oldest nameplate of all is the Corolla, though the current version of the mid-sized car dates back to just 2019 when it replaced the Auris, which 13 years earlier had replaced – the Corolla. The current version comes in five-door hatch or estate form and is a completely British car – it’s built in Derbyshire and its hybrid engines in north Wales.

Second longest-lasting model name in the mainstream line-up is the Yaris. The first version of the supermini appeared in 1999 and the current one is the fourth generation, launched in 2020. Again it only comes as a hybrid and is popular for its low running costs and reliability.

The Aygo X is the cheapest Toyota in the range and one of the few models in the range that only comes with a petrol engine rather than a hybrid unit.

The larger SUV range starts with the RAV4, a mainstay of the Toyota line-up for quarter of a century and arguably the car that started the industry move towards SUVs that had more car-like road manners. The current fifth-generation version launched in 2019 with hybrid engines while a plug-in hybrid has since been added. Buyers rate its low running costs and durability, some surveys naming it the most reliable SUV on the market.

Much more recent and indicative of the latest trend of family SUVs is the C-HR. The original launched in 2016 and was completely renewed in 2023. Again with its hybrid engines it’s famed for low running costs.

Newest SUV of all is the oddly named bZ4X, the first fully-electric model from Toyota which arrived in showrooms in 2022. It has similar proportions to the RAV4 and is pretty much identical to the Subaru Solterra. It comes with either single or dual electric motors.

SUVs are so popular that Toyota has tried to create them from its cars. The Yaris Cross does have many elements of the supermini in its build, but is a ‘proper’ small SUV. It’s not an off-roader, but unlike most rivals it can be had with all-wheel drive.

Current Toyota range in our Expert Rating Index

In recent years, Toyota has mde more of an effort to build out its performance car offering, starting with the GR Yaris – the GR stands for Gazoo Racing, which is Toyota’s motorsport division – is much more closely related to a stillborn rally car project than its supermini namesake. Its tiny three-cylinder engine pushes out 206hp – it’s fast, loud and has excellent handling.

The two proper sports cars are the GR86, a 2+2 coupe jointly built with Subaru, and the GR Supra, the latest generation of an iconic performance name in Toyota’s history. It comes in 2.0-litre or 3.0-litre form and is based on the BMW Z4.

Toyota has six new electric vehicles on the way over the next couple of years, starting with a small SUV based on a concept unveiled last year. In a completely different direction, an all-new version of the big Land Cruiser off-roader is likely to make it here by the end of the year.

Where can I try a Toyota car?

You won’t have too far to go to find a Toyota dealer. The brand has always had plenty of UK outlets and as some other manufacturers have shrunk their operations, Toyota has become one of the most prolific brands on motor alleys, currently offering more than 180 locations.

What makes Toyota different to the rest?

Toyota has achieved its massive global status not by doing anything outlandish but by ensuring its cars are among the most dependable on the market. Toyotas have always been cheap to run, well-built and very reliable, consistently topping customer satisfaction surveys.

If anything marks Toyota out as different, it is the marque’s investment and faith in the hybrid engine, faith some might argue has been a little blind as the maker is now playing catch-up against rivals who already have wide ranges of all-electric models.

A Toyota fact to impress your friends

A British company was directly responsible for the establishment of the firm that became the world’s biggest automotive manufacturer. Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda’s father Sakichi Toyoda had in 1924 invented an automatic loom for his textile works.

In 1929 Sakichi sold a patent to make the loom to the British textile machinery manufacturer Platt Brothers, and the money generated was used by Kiichiro to establish the automotive division of the Toyota Automatic Loom Works in 1933 – the rest, as they say…

Summary

The vast majority of owners don’t want a car that’s going to excite them every time they get in it – they want a machine that will be comfortable, remain well-built and never let them down. These qualities have always been core to the Toyota philosophy and the reasons why today this Japanese brand sells more cars than any other.