Looking back, was Akio Toyoda the right man for the job?

[Gecko]

11 years after taking the reins as president of Toyota Motor Corporation, I started thinking about how things have improved, worsened or changed under Akio Toyoda. 11 years is also a very long time, even in terms of model development and cycles, powertrain development, sales cycles, and more, so I feel like Akio's legacy is in fairly plain view.

I remember when he was named as president, and many of us were excited to finally have a driving enthusiast at the helm, someone who was passionate and promised us many new products. We all assumed that under his leadership and family namesake, things would be even better than they had been in the years before. Lexus was thriving from ~2000 - 2009 and Toyota was the one who was struggling with staid product, outdated hardware and software, and a boring lineup. I think many of us assumed that Lexus would continue to improve, and we'd see an exciting resurgence at Toyota. 11 years later, the tables have turned dramatically and it is Toyota who is vibrant, exciting, and mostly full of fresh product while Lexus has suffered.

Things that went well over Akio's 11 years:

• TNGA philosophy & movement, which is only a single point, but cannot be understated because it touches everything from product to profit
• Unibody Toyota products, ranging from Corolla to Highlander, but excluding the Sienna
• Leadership for the company coming out of the 2009 financial collapse, and 2011 earthquakes
• Introduction of GR sub-brand to contain all of the other global performance sub-brands
• Lexus' global expansion
• Dramatic increase in availability of hybrid models
• Toyota marketing and brand strategy
• The LFA
• Racing and motorsports efforts for both Toyota and Lexus
• Resurgence of Toyota sports cars
• Retirement of Scion
• Toyota changing it's buyer demographic and regaining marketshare among younger buyers
• Consolidation of Japanese dealer network

Things that have gone poorly over Akio's 11 years:

• Lexus product
• Lexus' F brand
• Lexus' marketing, brand strategy and competitive position
• Toyota's global body-on-frame lineup are some of the oldest and most outdated vehicles in the industry, and continued to be mired in delays and production changes
• From an organizational perspective, the move to "One Toyota" changed most Lexus employees' status as brand-dedicated professionals to being Toyota employees with some degree of responsibility for Lexus as a service line
• High reluctance to producing BEV's (despite having the technology)
• Self-Charging Hybrid campaign
• Lost some focus on market requirements (slow SUV rollout on both brands)

Things that have changed under Akio, for better or worse over 11 years:

• Several partnerships with companies like BMW, Mazda and Subaru for manufacturing, parts sharing, cost sharing and more
• Movement to focus on mobility instead of just transportation
• Lexus' shift to marketing campaigns and projects focused on boats, planes and hoverboards
• The transformation of Lexus from a USA-centric brand to a more global one
• Regional autonomy disappeared, with Japan regaining full control over the brands and product decisions

Looking at the lists above, in my unqualified opinion, I guess I'd give Akio a "B" with how things look right now. Most of what he has done has been amazing for Toyota, which is a much larger and more profitable brand, but unfortunately I would say he has had an overall negative impact on Lexus. When you weigh it all out, I think he's done well for Toyota Motor Corp as a leader, even if I had a different vision for how his tenure would impact Lexus.

I know my lists above are not comprehensive, so feel free to add points below and I will add them.

What do you think about Akio Toyoda's time leading Toyota?

 

[Will1991]

Akio take the helm in a complicated situation, the sudden acceleration problem, a Tsunami, a global recession... It has been 11 hard years...

Regarding a final evaluation, overall I agree with you, but I would add:

• Higher than I understand reluctance in producing BEV's (despite having the technology)
• Self-Charging Hybrid campaign
• Lost some focus on market requirements (slow SUV rollout on both brands)

 

[Gecko]

Akio take the helm in a complicated situation, the sudden acceleration problem, a Tsunami, a global recession... It has been 11 hard years...

Regarding a final evaluation, overall I agree with you, but I would add:

• Higher than I understand reluctance in producing BEV's (despite having the technology)
• Self-Charging Hybrid campaign
• Lost some focus on market requirements (slow SUV rollout on both brands)

Added! Good ones.

 

[Joaquin Ruhi]

@Gecko: Excellent, spot-on analysis and commentary. Not really much to add.

I'll go off on a bit of a tangent, though. As Covid-19 has morphed my Spanish-language videos for Que Auto Compro from straight outdoor reviews to indoor conversations and interviews via Skype, Zoom or Stage Ten, I had to hastily create a presentable backdrop at home for those. In doing so, I unearthed my copy of Bob Lutz's seminal Car Guys vs Bean Counters book. And I'd say some of that went on at Toyota as Akio rose to the presidency, and probably goes on to this day. In fact, I recall reading an article or forums post or two (not necessarily here) to that effect. Akio isn't a one-man show. High in Toyota's corporate ranks are the non-car enthusiast bean counters to...um...counter some of Akio's car enthusiast impulses, especially through crises such as the sudden-acceleration debacle, the Great Recession of 2008 and the tsunami. Even as Akio pushed through the Toyota 86, Supra, GR Yaris and WEC endurance racing as his personal passion projects, he may have had to, in turn, temper some Lexus-branded initiatives to appease those bean counters.

I've read commentary that it might be an ego thing, that he favors the brand bearing the family name over the upstart luxury brand. Perhaps what Jonny Lieberman wrote for Motor Trend is true and the Lexus brand is losing money hand over fist. Or maybe the chief engineers in charge of the TNGA-F body-on-frame truck platform haven't been able to get their act together in a timely manner.

Still, at least Akio's heart is in the right place, for the most part. I'll be a bit more generous and give Akio a B+.

 

[Sulu]

Things that have changed under Akio, for better or worse over 11 years:

• Several partnerships with companies like BMW, Mazda and Subaru for manufacturing, parts sharing, cost sharing and more
• Movement to focus on mobility instead of just transportation
• Lexus' shift to marketing campaigns and projects focused on boats, planes and hoverboards
• The transformation of Lexus from a USA-centric brand to a more global one
• Regional autonomy disappeared, with Japan regaining full control over the brands and product decisions

This bullet point that I highlighted, I believe, may be the root cause of many problems -- both real and perceived. The Japanese market, like the Japanese culture, is NOT western and so is very different from the cultures -- and the products produced by those cultures -- that we tend to compare Toyota and Lexus to, namely German/Western European and North American.

Akio take the helm in a complicated situation, the sudden acceleration problem, a Tsunami, a global recession... It has been 11 hard years...

Regarding a final evaluation, overall I agree with you, but I would add:

• Higher than I understand reluctance in producing BEV's (despite having the technology)
• Self-Charging Hybrid campaign
• Lost some focus on market requirements (slow SUV rollout on both brands)

Could these issues, especially the 2 that I highlighted, be an outcome of the centralized control of the brands from Japan? With increasing centralized control, could it be that Toyota and Lexus are losing touch with western concerns and sentiments?

And that leads me to this point: Could the disregard of the GS -- which eventually (and inevitably) led to its cancellation -- have been caused by a lack of understanding of the role of a mid-sized, not-too-large and not-too-small, true competitor to the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and BMW 5-Series, i.e. lack of an understanding of the Western luxury automotive brands? Or could our collective mourning of the loss of the GS be the result of our lack of understanding of the unique Japanese culture and its domestic market?

 

[Levi]

And that leads me to this point: Could the disregard of the GS -- which eventually (and inevitably) led to its cancellation -- have been caused by a lack of understanding of the role of a mid-sized, not-too-large and not-too-small, true competitor to the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and BMW 5-Series, i.e. lack of an understanding of the Western luxury automotive brands? Or could our collective mourning of the loss of the GS be the result of our lack of understanding of the unique Japanese culture and its domestic market?

Good point. Watching car videos in Japan, Japanese mostly buy domestic brands, which are many and cover all segments, bar supercars. I do not know because I have never been there, but it seems Japanese show more humility in their culture and do not feel the need to display their success/posessions. Toyota has always had their luxury cars (in terms of product, not brand image), and I think for them a Toyota is a Toyota, what counts later is which one.

Lexus was developed mostly for the NA market and initially was not sold in Japan, they were badged Toyota.

Now, the Crown is a a luxury sedan with a very long heritage for the JDM, which is not the caseof the GS. I do not have JDM data, but online impression makes me think Japanese take the Crown over the GS, which has similar cultural value to the Japanese as the E Class/5 Series duo (A6 is a late comer) has for thw Germans (with the market change in the last years this has changed, but Japanese are more traditional).

Could it be that TMC judged the GS success based on its own market rather than foreign markets and are not able to understand/decrypt and satisfy them? And even this generation of GS could have not existed. Clearly they must be doing something wrong and not do understand or find a way how to sell this car.

Who is to say they won't have the same issue with the IS?

 

[Ian Schmidt]

Could it be that TMC judged the GS success based on its own market rather than foreign markets and are not able to understand/decrypt and satisfy them? And even this generation of GS could have not existed. Clearly they must be doing something wrong and not do understand or find a way how to sell this car.

That's all true about the JDM market where the Crown is a thing, but the GS wasn't a blockbuster seller in the US either. You can blame dealers, or the mass market not caring about RWD, or the loss of Lexus' cachet in the early 00s, which made German tweeners much more desirable than Lexus tweeners regardless of the actual merits. Or all 3, really.

 

[ssun30]

If you look at failing Japanese enterprise in general, Toyota is an outlier. Nothing has gone right in Japan when the Lost Decade became 'Three Lost Decades'. Once great names like Nissan and Mitsubishi are falling into obscurity. Honda put up a valiant effort to keep making amazing cars but is financially bleeding. The once proud electronics industry is in complete ruins. Their dominant nuclear energy industry was brought to its knees by the 3.11 earthquake. Abeconomics finally started make things happen and Coronavirus came to reset everything. Japan is one of the unluckiest nations in the world.

Among all this gloomy future there is Akio-era Toyota, which became extremely streamlined in operation and very efficient not only for Japanese standards but also for international standards. They still have the strongest technology reserve in the entire auto industry despite what western media want you to believe (that they are slow to innovate and stuck with old tech). Toyota is the official sponsor of Tokyo 2020 because it is literally the last pride of Japan. The country has nothing to show to the world except for hydrogen-powered self-driving cars.

All that efficiency comes with a price: Toyota has the second highest workplace stress after Tesla in the industry. They are doing a LOT of R&D projects with a limited engineering workforce. Toyota has the best benefit package in Japan, but money doesn't solve all problems. The fact that some of their development in the past decade was slow has to do with this extreme efficiency-driven lean-workforce mindset. They are now alleviating this problem by expanded recruitment especially in the engineering department.

Perhaps the best thing that happened during this period was consolidation of its bloated dealership network in Japan. That Bubble-era relic has been a parasite to the company for three decades and this issue is understated by people unfamiliar with the subject.

As for Akio Toyoda himself, it's hard to turn a big ship like this. In a family business there is a lot of power struggle just like in a feudal society. Akio Toyoda spent half a decade to even gain full control of his company. It's not as easy as 'hey I want to build cool cars now go do it'. Nobody dared making changes to the domestic dealership system since the factions have too much influence but Akio Toyoda said enough is enough and made the call.

Seriously, under his leadership the company survived two major disasters (soon to be three) and became the world's largest and healthiest automobile company without government bail-out money. I would give him an A+.

 

[Joaquin Ruhi]

Perhaps the best thing that happened during this period was consolidation of its bloated dealership network in Japan. That Bubble-era relic has been a parasite to the company for three decades and this issue is understated by people unfamiliar with the subject.

I forgot about that one. Indeed, even though it's still a work in progress, the positive steps towards consolidating the ridiculous and Byzantine four (once five) separate Toyota-branded dealer networks leading to unnecessary twins and triplets of the same car are happening under Akio's watch.

 

[LexsCTJill]

Things that have gone poorly over Akio's 11 years:

• Lexus product Interesting, Lexus is in fact up 8% worldwide this year. They are doing well in new markets. I wonder what the Lexus sales for worldwide were when Akio took over 11 years ago and what they are now.
• Lexus' F brand I agree that the F brand should perhaps be criticized. The knee jerk reaction is that Lexus F should be as good a performer as BMW M or MB AMG....however, I don't think people would really pay the same money as they would an M or AMG...so Lexus does their own thing to gain awareness within their brand which was considered dull in 2009. That said, if you asked my household if we would ever see a sub 4 second, two door, carbon fibre hood, roof and truck, with a real Torsen diff, a crazy rear wing, and a natually aspirated V8 way back in 2009, I would say the person asking was crazy.
• Lexus' marketing, brand strategy and competitive position Lexus marketing definitely has taken a new direction, but their sales worldwide are up
• Toyota's global body-on-frame lineup are some of the oldest and most outdated vehicles in the industry, and continued to be mired in delays and production changes This segment of Toyota is interesting. In hindsight, the creation of the 2nd gen Tundra/Sequoia line in addition to the Land Cruiser 200 lines was a mistake back in 2007. No other manufacturer has TWO large size body on frame SUVs on sale in the US (LC or Sequoia) I firmly believe that the new design is done, but Toyota has put it all on hold until there was a downturn in the economy and that downturn was bottomed out.
• From an organizational perspective, the move to "One Toyota" changed most Lexus employees' status as brand-dedicated professionals to being Toyota employees with some degree of responsibility for Lexus as a service line Note really sure I understand this?
• High reluctance to producing BEV's (despite having the technology) Toyota is going the hybrid route and I didn't agree with it at first, but over time I think the hybrid is the right way to go. Toyota eventually believes in hydrogen, so I dunno. The reps from Toyota at the Toronto Auto Show said that there will be no Toyota battery EVS in the United States or Canada until they can go 500+ km minimum
• Self-Charging Hybrid campaign Never agreed with this campaign
• Lost some focus on market requirements (slow SUV rollout on both brands)

Hope you can appreciate my thoughts.

 

[Gecko]

Hope you can appreciate my thoughts.

Of course - thanks for sharing 😊.

- Lexus being "up" globally is good news, but realize these are new markets where Lexus products are seen as edgy, unique and new because they've never been available before. Also, naturally, as you expand your footprint, your sales should rise unless something is terribly wrong. This is not a direct reflection on product, IMO, but rather access. NX, RX and ES have probably been the largest drivers of growth - the first two are old and the last is hard to call particularly noteworthy since it is a badge engineered Avalon underneath.
- Agree that F doesn't have to be the same thing, the same way as the Germans have done it, but now that GS F is going away, Lexus will have just one F product. No IS F, which would be the cheapest and most accessible model, nor any F SUVs. It is a miss.
- See point 1 again
- Not sure I agree... GMC Yukon/Yukon XL, Tahoe/Suburban, Expedition/Expedition Max. I also don't necessarily think Land Cruiser/Sequoia are both necessary, but the overall age of Toyota's BOF lineup is unacceptable. Sales numbers are only buoyed by a truck-centric market, luckily for Toyota.
- The One Toyota movement speaks to some internal structural changes.

 

[spwolf]

I think this can be looked at with two different eyes:

a. From Business perspective - A+++. Most profitable car company in the world, by far, while producing very competitive vehicles today.
b. From enthusiast perspective - depending on what models you like, it could be awesome with UX, Rav4, Corolla, GR Yaris.. or it could be disaster/boring with Land Cruiser, LX, GS, etc.

So I understand what Gecko is saying, I just tend to look at it from Business perspective and not a personal one... in some ways, I consider Gecko's opinion more valid than mine.

 

[spwolf]

- Lexus being "up" globally is good news, but realize these are new markets where Lexus products are seen as edgy, unique and new because they've never been available before. Also, naturally, as you expand your footprint, your sales should rise unless something is terribly wrong. This is not a direct reflection on product, IMO, but rather access. NX, RX and ES have probably been the largest drivers of growth - the first two are old and the last is hard to call particularly noteworthy since it is a badge engineered Avalon underneath.

Hm, Japan, Europe, and China are not new markets for Lexus .

And please, ES is not badge engineered Avalon. I am sure you understand what badge engineered means.

Why is it so hard to accept that Lexus sales are actually growing because they invested smartly into their areas of growth.

 

[Gecko]

Hm, Japan, Europe, and China are not new markets for Lexus .

And please, ES is not badge engineered Avalon. I am sure you understand what badge engineered means.

Why is it so hard to accept that Lexus sales are actually growing because they invested smartly into their areas of growth.

How is ES not a badge engineered Avalon? It is the exact same vehicle with restyled sheetmetal, interior panels, sound deadening, springs/shocks and stabilizers. What is a better term... platform engineered?

Your last point is something I very much agree with: they have invested smartly in the right markets, with the right products (like ES 300h), so they are showing net positive sales globally. These are FWD, Toyota-based products that are cheaper to produce, which allows them to be sold with a value proposition against the Germans. Lexus knows their market and they play it smartly, but they are not in a position of category leadership with regard to product superiority. Longer term with more new product, they will have a larger footprint and stronger brand identity, and should be in an even better position with things like next gen NX and RX.

 

[spwolf]

p.s. More about Lexus sales worldwide:

Global sales of Lexus vehicles reached an all-time high in 2007, with a total of 518,000. Sales decreased in subsequent years due to the effects of the 2008 recession and the Japanese tsunami of 2011. Following this, sales recovered and reached a new high of 523,000 in 2013.[154]

In 2014, the Lexus brand set a new global sales record after selling 582,000 vehicles. This made Lexus the fourth best selling luxury brand in the world, trailing BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz.[155]


Fuji Lexus College, training facility for dealers in Shizuoka, Japan
Global sales of Lexus vehicles increased by 12 percent in 2015 to reach another annual sales record with 652,000 units sold worldwide.[156]

When Akio took over, Lexus was probably doing around 400k sales per year but that is guessing. For instance EU sales dropped by 50% in 2007 vs 2009.

Also, as a "new" brand, in many markets Lexus sales are very product based. For instance in Europe, Japan sales go up when new model is introduced and down after 2-3 years of that model. It is only recently that due to variety of models, sales have been stabilizing.

 

[spwolf]

How is ES not a badge engineered Avalon?

badge engineered means:

This is a list of vehicles that have been considered to be the result of badge engineering (rebadging), cloning, platform sharing, joint ventures between different car manufacturing companies, captive imports, or simply the practice of selling the same or similar cars in different markets (or even side-by-side in the same market) under different marques or model nameplates.

rebadged cars.

Do you think ES is rebadged Avalon?

Even more importantly, Avalon sells 30k units per year, ES sells around 200k units per year. Do you think they built Avalon first and then slapped Lexus badge on it?

If anything, TMC always did platform sharing really, really well. That is why ES and NX and UX and RX sell so well. Because a lot of time, effort and money was invested in their development, and it shows and customers are able to see it and hence they buy the vehicles instead.

Unlike for instance a lot of VW group vehicles, Toyota always invested a lot of money into developing each car and not sharing anything that is visible to the customer, which has to cost them a ton of money.

Even new TNGA platform, which shares a lot more than Toyota platforms did before, was engineered so cars can be very different and still designed differently inside/out... vs for instance VW platforms, where a lot more components are shared.

so TNGA is definitely a big win for whole TMC, including Lexus.

 

[spwolf]

This bullet point that I highlighted, I believe, may be the root cause of many problems -- both real and perceived. The Japanese market, like the Japanese culture, is NOT western and so is very different from the cultures -- and the products produced by those cultures -- that we tend to compare Toyota and Lexus to, namely German/Western European and North American.


Could these issues, especially the 2 that I highlighted, be an outcome of the centralized control of the brands from Japan? With increasing centralized control, could it be that Toyota and Lexus are losing touch with western concerns and sentiments?

And that leads me to this point: Could the disregard of the GS -- which eventually (and inevitably) led to its cancellation -- have been caused by a lack of understanding of the role of a mid-sized, not-too-large and not-too-small, true competitor to the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and BMW 5-Series, i.e. lack of an understanding of the Western luxury automotive brands? Or could our collective mourning of the loss of the GS be the result of our lack of understanding of the unique Japanese culture and its domestic market?

a. 4GS was a very German GS.
b. Japanese market is indeed unique, and Lexus will always be a hard sell there because TMC likes healthy competition between brands so it is fine for them to have Harrier vs NX, Crown vs GS, etc. Lexus sells better in USA, China, than Japan and even Europe and some arab countries together are very close to Japanese sales. So I would say Lexus is not built for Japan, even today. They are extremely expensive vehicles in Japan.
c. Actually I think they finally got it, Westerners do not buy midsized luxury sedans because they are awesome sports sedans (GS was one). They buy them because they are their Camry's. Hence the ES and not GS. 520d, A6, E class are literally German Camry - they have huge 30% discounts and extremely cheap leases.

It is pretty interesting topic.

I am very happy that with NX, Lexus has managed to add a stable selling vehicle in Europe, together with very expensive RX and now excellent selling UX. Now they have a tri-fecta of vehicles that wont stop selling in their 3rd year of sales like LS, GS and IS always did, because they were cool only when brand new in Europe.


This means more investments into dealer networks, and overall happier customers.

 

[Gecko]

badge engineered means:



rebadged cars.

Do you think ES is rebadged Avalon?

Even more importantly, Avalon sells 30k units per year, ES sells around 200k units per year. Do you think they built Avalon first and then slapped Lexus badge on it?

If anything, TMC always did platform sharing really, really well. That is why ES and NX and UX and RX sell so well. Because a lot of time, effort and money was invested in their development, and it shows and customers are able to see it and hence they buy the vehicles instead.

Unlike for instance a lot of VW group vehicles, Toyota always invested a lot of money into developing each car and not sharing anything that is visible to the customer, which has to cost them a ton of money.

Even new TNGA platform, which shares a lot more than Toyota platforms did before, was engineered so cars can be very different and still designed differently inside/out... vs for instance VW platforms, where a lot more components are shared.

so TNGA is definitely a big win for whole TMC, including Lexus.

I do believe the ES, Camry and Avalon are all badge engineered or platform engineered/shared, as that definition states. To your follow up points, I have absolutely no issues with this approach...if anything, sharing a platform and mechanicals with core Lexus products like ES, 2NX, 5RX, etc. means that Camry, Avalon, Rav4 and Highlander had to be built to an even higher, Lexus-like standard. All of this is the beauty of TNGA! I think the issue then becomes: When your mainstream products are built to such a high standard, what is being done to elevate the luxury brand's related products? In the case of Lexus, that answer lies in screens, leather and wood trim. Is that enough? For me, no. For other brands like Audi, upmarket product differentiation means more powerful engines and more sophisticated AWD systems as well as leather, wood and screens.

But back to the point above, a rigid, well built FWD platform is still a FWD platform when compared to premium ones like BMW Carbon Core and Mercedes MRA. It is, of course, a very different driving experience from FWD ES.

I absolutely loved the GS, and I wish it did not die. However, it did, so that's the reality. If Lexus did more and offered something like ES with a ~350hp V6 and a 50:50 F/R torque locking AWD system, nobody would shed a tear about the death of the GS and it would help to create some distance between Avalon and ES. As it stands now, they are very closely related and Lexus has not done much to bring the ES further upmarket. My assumption is that will happen in the next generation with the GS firmly out of the way.

 

[spwolf]

I do believe the ES, Camry and Avalon are all badge engineered or platform engineered/shared, as that definition states.

well quite a difference between badge engineered - slapping a different badge to same car, vs platform engineered.

The term badge engineering is an intentionally ironic misnomer, in that little or no actual engineering takes place.[4][5]

The term originated with the practice of replacing an automobile's emblems to create an ostensibly new model sold by a different maker. Changes may be confined to swapping badges and emblems, or may encompass minor styling differences, as with cosmetic changes to headlights, tail lights, front and rear fascias and outer body skins. More extreme examples involve differing engines and drivetrains. The term badge engineered does not apply to vehicles that share a common platform architecture but are uniquely designed so that they may look completely different from each other. This is achieved by not sharing visible parts, and maintaining a host of underlying parts specific to their respective applications.

And as to the Audi vs VW and Toyota vs Lexus, big difference is in execution. Smaller/cheaper Audi's look a lot like VWs inside, while Lexus has completely different interior design to Toyota. It is not just enough to slap leather on the dash and call it luxury.

As to the engines, there isnt a lot of difference because most Audi's sold in Europe come with 2.0 TDI, shared with Seat, Skoda and VW. Sure, if you live in Europe, you might be one of the few that gets performance A4, but most likely, by far, you will be getting 2.0 TDI.

 

[F1 Silver Arrows]

If you look at failing Japanese enterprise in general, Toyota is an outlier. Nothing has gone right in Japan when the Lost Decade became 'Three Lost Decades'. Once great names like Nissan and Mitsubishi are falling into obscurity. Honda put up a valiant effort to keep making amazing cars but is financially bleeding. The once proud electronics industry is in complete ruins. Their dominant nuclear energy industry was brought to its knees by the 3.11 earthquake. Abeconomics finally started make things happen and Coronavirus came to reset everything. Japan is one of the unluckiest nations in the world.

Among all this gloomy future there is Akio-era Toyota, which became extremely streamlined in operation and very efficient not only for Japanese standards but also for international standards. They still have the strongest technology reserve in the entire auto industry despite what western media want you to believe (that they are slow to innovate and stuck with old tech). Toyota is the official sponsor of Tokyo 2020 because it is literally the last pride of Japan. The country has nothing to show to the world except for hydrogen-powered self-driving cars.

All that efficiency comes with a price: Toyota has the second highest workplace stress after Tesla in the industry. They are doing a LOT of R&D projects with a limited engineering workforce. Toyota has the best benefit package in Japan, but money doesn't solve all problems. The fact that some of their development in the past decade was slow has to do with this extreme efficiency-driven lean-workforce mindset. They are now alleviating this problem by expanded recruitment especially in the engineering department.

Perhaps the best thing that happened during this period was consolidation of its bloated dealership network in Japan. That Bubble-era relic has been a parasite to the company for three decades and this issue is understated by people unfamiliar with the subject.

As for Akio Toyoda himself, it's hard to turn a big ship like this. In a family business there is a lot of power struggle just like in a feudal society. Akio Toyoda spent half a decade to even gain full control of his company. It's not as easy as 'hey I want to build cool cars now go do it'. Nobody dared making changes to the domestic dealership system since the factions have too much influence but Akio Toyoda said enough is enough and made the call.

Seriously, under his leadership the company survived two major disasters (soon to be three) and became the world's largest and healthiest automobile company without government bail-out money. I would give him an A+.

THIS. SO MUCH THIS. I wish I could like this one an infinite amount of times.

I just have to add one thing though. Look at how badass and enthusiast minded him and his team is while also thinking about for the good of the corporation as well.

He has single-handedly made Toyota the most powerful, exciting, efficient and streamlined manufacturer EVER. To top that, he's a F*CKING RACING DRIVER and has the legendary title of Master Driver. To be able to be so approachable, understanding, and being appreciative of other manufacturers and racing disciplines is a quality that not many higher-level executives have. I have never seen a guy of this caliber that is so classy and well-loved by everyone in the entire world. He also has a more modest salary compared to other employees that work at Toyota Motor Corporation.

Personally I'm proud to have Toyota vehicles in my family. He represents the brand and Toyota owners perfectly.

I give him an A+ too.