Toyota announced significant changes to its executive structure in January 2023. We’re starting to hear more about the difficulties and worries Akio Toyoda had while serving as the company’s chairman after he resigned as CEO. Toyoda responded candidly to questions posed by media, dealer reps, and other attendees at the Japan Mobility Show.
Toyoda mentioned a few times how challenging it was for him to alter the company’s new product development processes. When Lexus debuted the then-new GS fourteen years ago, the general consensus was that the brand was uninteresting. That’s when he began this procedure. Additionally, he heard responses from European automakers who were using the Nurburgring to test new cars, which looked at Toyota’s projects and commented that “Toyota can’t do it.”
This merely represented the very beginning. Persuaded that the corporation needed to change and produce more thrilling vehicles, Toyoda collaborated with the engineers and executives of the company to increase their openness to his ideas. At that time, Toyoda also began personally testing the majority of the brand’s new cars in order to provide the R&D division with firsthand input.
2024 Toyota GR Supra
He stated, “I always worry that Toyota will become just another regular company,” as reported by Toyota Times. “It will be too late when that fear spreads to a large number of individuals. It took me 14 years, even with the title of president, to alter Toyota, but things may turn back at any time.
